


Promised Things

by Applesandbannas747



Series: Things to Hold Onto [1]
Category: Fence (Comics)
Genre: (only one scene and they're overage but still there's drinking), Arranged Marriage AU, Drinking, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, background Harvard/Aiden, reference to alcoholic and neglectful parent, set up for Eugene/Jesse companion fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:34:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 57
Words: 113,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26786785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Applesandbannas747/pseuds/Applesandbannas747
Summary: On his eighteenth birthday, Nicholas Cox received an eviction notice from his mother. On his twentieth, he unknowingly inherited a multi-billion dollar company and a fiancé.When he was five, Seiji Katayama was told he would marry a boy who would grow to be a very important man. When he was twenty, he was told he would wed adifferentman who, by all rights, should not be important at all.Both men were promised to lives entirely different from the one they now find themselves forging together.
Relationships: Nicholas Cox/Seiji Katayama
Series: Things to Hold Onto [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2163135
Comments: 1127
Kudos: 361





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> We're back, babeyy! 
> 
> Reminder: there are veryyyy slight spoilers to Striking Distance referenced in this fic (in fact, you may have guessed what that spoiler is from the tags lmao) so be aware of that before proceeding if you haven't read Striking Distance yet and would like to avoid all spoilers. 
> 
> Here we go, and I hope you enjoy 💜

Nick whistled under his breath at the car currently getting towed into his lot. Wiping his hands on an already greasy rag before returning it to the pocket of his coveralls, Nick rounded the car he’d been working on to talk with this newcomer.

A tall and proud-looking man stepped from the cab of the tow truck and scanned the yard distastefully. He didn’t belong here at all and his expression hinted at the fact that he thought it a great injustice he _had_ to be here, surrounded in filth.

“Anything I can do for you today?” Nick asked, presenting an easy smile and speaking in an easy tone.

Friendliness impressed this imposing stranger as much as everything else about Nick did. Which was to say not at all.

“My car broke down,” the man said briskly. Nick could see _that_. Who had this guy pissed off to earn four slashed tires?

Nick regarded the car. A sporting yellow thing with the flashy blade logo of Coste Motor gleaming silver on the grill, he had a hard time connecting the car to the man. Maybe he drove it to feel young and cool. Nick had seen the type before. Men going through their midlife crises and getting cars they didn’t know how to take care of.

“Come on in, sir, let’s get you sorted.” Nick ushered the man inside and rummaged around behind the cluttered desk, locating the proper forms and turning back to the man.

Inside, without the sun’s glare and up close, Nick was surprised to find that this man wasn’t a midlife crisiser at all. He was young. Maybe around Nick’s age; definitely early twenties at the most. He only had a way of holding himself that made him look like a businessman in his forties, and the way his displeasure drew lines in his face fooled you at first glance into reading them as wrinkles. They weren’t. There wasn’t a blemish to be seen on this man’s face. Except for a dark beauty spot, just under his left eye.

Nick recognized that mark. And those eyes. And this man.

“I only need you to get my car into working condition so that I can take it somewhere better.”

“I’m sure I can fix up your car,” Nick said, trying to hold onto his pleasant voice and welcoming expression. “No need to worry, she’s in good hands.”

“I wouldn’t bring it here at all if I had a choice so let me be clear, I don’t want you grubbying it up, understood? I have no doubt that you’ve never even seen a car like mine before so don’t bother poking around trying to figure out how it works. I need new tires, nothing else.”

“Is anything else wrong with it?” Nick asked. “To your knowledge?”

“No. But I know how your sort operates. Don’t try to tell me there are hundreds of dollars in damages and upkeep I didn’t notice. You wouldn’t even know what a car like this requires. I’ll take it to a shop equipped to handle it when I get back home. All you need to do is—,”

“Change the tires,” Nick finished. “Got it.”

Dark eyes narrowed at Nick for his tone but he didn’t care. He didn’t appreciate being talked down to. Like he was dirty and stupid and unworthy to look at this man in his fancy suit or his fancy car.

Nick got everything he needed from the man with a promptness that made him glad his new customer was as anxious to get out of here as Nick was to be rid of him. He hated rich snooty types. Not a lot came here—they were too rich and snooty for Joe’s old shop—but Nick still knew enough of their type to dislike them on sight.

A car was waiting out front. No questions who it was here for.

“Remember, don’t touch anything but the tires.”

“Got it,” Nick said, temper slipping at the repeated insult and the look of absolute disdain delivered with it. “Wouldn’t want to return your boyfriend’s car to him in bad shape, would you? He wouldn’t let you take it out again. Let’s just hope for your sake that you know how to drive a clutch and haven’t already ruined the transmission. Not quite the engagement gift he’ll be hoping for, right, Seiji?”

If Nick had thought the previous looks he’d gotten were bad, it was nothing to the absolute sneer of disgust Seiji Katayama gave him now. It was like Nick was both extremely repulsive and extremely small. Inconsequential. Unimportant. A grotesque ant or a picked-off scab.

“Please,” Seiji said with bored but pointed contempt, “don’t dirty my name by putting it in your mouth. Refrain from saying it again, the thought of it on your tongue makes me ill.”

And with that, he was gone, climbing into the sleek black cab he’d ordered.

“Rich bastard,” Nick muttered to himself, turning back inside to the small office/waiting room to make a spiteful little note on Seiji Katayama’s file: _don’t call him Seiji._ On his way back out to the yard, his eyes snagged on the messy pile of magazines spread on the crate between the two beat-up chairs that comprised their waiting area.

Seiji Katayama’s gorgeous face was on the top, a perfect pale oval framed with poshly styled hair as black as his eyes, his beauty mark standing out starkly. Long lashes and straight nose and thinly bowed lips. It was a memorable face. Bold text across it read:

**_SEIJI KATAYAMA OF KATAYAMA ENERGY ENGAGED TO HEIR OF COSTE EMPIRE?_ **

It promised more information on page three. Nick hadn’t read page three. But he knew the story. Of course he did. How could he not?

When Jesse Coste had turned eighteen last month, news had dropped of his betrothal. A betrothal that had, apparently, been in place since he was a child. Powerful families liked to tie themselves together with other powerful families. That was how they stayed powerful and got richer. Coste Motor and Katayama Energy had been a strong partnership for years, it wasn’t that surprising that the young heirs were engaged. What _was_ surprising was how long it had been in the works. When the two companies had gone into business together years ago, the understanding that Seiji Katayama and Jesse Coste would marry had been part of the deal. Insurance that the partnership would continue.

Nick thought it was stupid. But he had a friend that thought it was romantic. Maybe Nick was biased. Disenfranchised to everything to do with the Costes and rich blood. All they cared about was them and theirs. They didn’t know anything about the real world. Nick did. Nick _lived_ in the real world.

After he graduated in June, Joe would take him on full-time here—even more full-time than he already was. He could get another job, too, to help save up. It would be easier with school done with. Nick couldn’t afford college. But, in the real world, you didn’t need that. He’d get by fine and Seiji Katayama could look down his nose at real work all he wanted but at least Nick was his own damn person.


	2. Chapter 2

###  _Two Years Later_

“I do hope you’re remembering my birthday next week,” Jesse said languidly, a smirk on his face indicating that he suspected Seiji had forgotten. He hadn’t and they both knew it.

“If this is your way of asking if I got you a gift, you shouldn’t worry,” Seiji returned blandly, straightening his cuff-links, though they required no attention. It wouldn’t do to pay full attention to Jesse. “It’s been clear since we were kids what you’ll be receiving.”

“Your hand in marriage? Come now, darling, that’s such a boring gift.”

“I seem to remember that _you_ got me an engagement ring for my eighteenth birthday. I think you’ll like the wedding band I chose for you.”

“When I did it, it was original. And I won’t be able to wear the ring for almost a month besides,” Jesse sighed dramatically. “Jests aside, you had better actually show up to the interview this time.”

“I was forty minutes late _once,_ Jesse. Two years ago. And for good reason. Your manic little fans mutilated my car.”

“Your car that my company built.”

“My car that your _father’s_ company built in partnership with _my_ family’s technology.”

Jesse waved away the details. He always did. Jesse Coste was not built for teamwork or partnerships, preferring to keep all the glory and credit to himself. Coste Motor Company wasn’t even Jesse’s to take credit for. Not yet. When he turned twenty next week, he was set to inherit it all. Seiji couldn’t imagine what had possessed Robert Coste to think his arrogant son was ready to take over such huge responsibilities, especially as young as he was. But that had been part of the plan for as long as there had been a plan.

The other part of the plan, the part that concerned Seiji more, was the part that involved him marrying Jesse. When his parents had told him of the arrangement when he was five, he’d thought it a joke. It had not been a joke.

 _“This is a very important and beneficial endeavor, Seiji,”_ Father had said, speaking to him plainly and as seriously as though Seiji were on his level, a fellow adult. _“We need to ensure that this partnership holds, even after Robert is no longer heading Coste Motor. Do you understand?”_

Seiji had nodded. But he hadn’t understood. Not really. Marriage was such an abstract concept to him back then. But he’d liked Jesse. At five, the pair of them had got on well. Jesse was a social butterfly and Seiji had been entranced by his colorful wings and the way he cut through the air, clearing a path for himself and anyone near him. That hadn’t lasted long. Friendships, it turned out, were difficult to maintain when you were caught in a constant cold war, always trying to get the upper-hand on the other because that was the only way to win in their situation.

Seiji understood now. Marriage wasn’t an uncommon method of business dealings. Big, important partnerships like Katayama Energy and Coste Motor Company required big, important commitments to ensure the best interest of both companies would be met. The Katayamas and the Costes had both secured power through marriage before. Seiji’s mother and father were legends—she’d had the money, he’d had the million-dollar idea. Together, they’d built Katayama Energy from the ground up. And Coste Motor had folded plenty of competitors into their empire over the years by way of marriage.

 _It’s barbaric._ Seiji frowned at the resurgent memory. A scruffy, anonymous nobody muttering insults under the hood of a car. _What are they? Fuckin’ royalty from the Dark Ages? If a business deal falls apart without the bedroom coming into things, doesn’t that just make it a bad deal?_

The anonymous scruff hadn’t known Seiji was there, ready to pick up his car. But he’d stood his ground at Seiji’s pointed cough to capture his and his companion’s attention, not shamed at all for his gossip. Seiji wouldn’t think back on that so often if not for Jesse’s insistence on bringing it up. Each and every time they had any important interview, event, or appearance together, Jesse made some trite little comment about Seiji’s failure to show up to the studio for what was meant to be a live interview about the long-standing but newly revealed engagement.

Seiji had only been late because he’d refused to leave his car for someone else to sort out after it had already suffered damage, curtesy of Jesse’s rabid and heartbroken followers. As if slashing his tires and making him miss the first three-quarters of an interview with his betrothed would truly remove Seiji from the picture. As if _anything_ could remove Seiji from the picture. They had a marriage contract. They’d been working on it since they were five. Seiji wasn’t going anywhere and neither was his marriage to Jesse.

But Jesse refused to let the incident go and so that wretched mechanic’s shop he’d had to have his car towed to and that rude, scruffy boy were permanent fixtures in Seiji’s life. A pin in the roadmap of his and Jesse’s relationship that Jesse enjoyed visiting for some ludicrous amusement in pointing out what he considered to be a flaw of Seiji’s. It wasn’t. And it only proved that Jesse wasn’t overly good at analytical thought that he couldn’t see that.

Robert Coste, current head of Coste Motor Company, came into his office and ended all talk of interviews and birthdays.

“Gentlemen,” he said in greeting. Seiji nodded in return but Jesse hardly acknowledged his father at all. Despite the assumption one might come to observing them interact here, the two got along exceedingly well. Too well, in fact. Robert spoiled Jesse rotten, letting him get away with all kinds of disrespectful behaviors.

“Afternoon, Robert,” Seiji said cordially.

“I trust you can guess why I’ve asked you both here today?”

“The wedding contract,” Seiji provided because Jesse couldn’t be bothered to.

“Indeed. Finalizations should be completed by the twenty-seventh so it can be signed and made binding on your wedding day without a hitch.”

Jesse laughed breezily and rolled his eyes.

“If that was a joke, I wonder where my sense of humor came from.” Jesse waved off his father’s concern. “I _know_ , Dad. Seiji and I have had this deadline for fifteen years, it’s not like we can forget it.”

That much was true.

“Everything is all but finalized, in any case,” Seiji reported.

“Oh, I don’t know about that. There’s still a couple little things I’d like to revisit.” Jesse’s pointed smile gave nothing away. _If_ he truly wanted to discuss any clauses in their contract, Seiji had no doubts about which ones they were. But it was also entirely possible that Jesse knew very well Seiji would remain unyielding on those fronts and only said this now to try and stir up trouble. It amused him, making other people uncomfortable. How unfortunate for him, then, that Seiji was to be his partner in life and in business.

“I’ll leave it to you to make sure your contract is in shape by the twenty-seventh,” Robert repeated the date and Jesse repeated the eye-roll. “Are you both prepared for the…”

Seiji assumed Robert meant to question them about their appearance on Whittaker’s Whispers but his phone distracted him before he could complete the thought. Robert pulled out his personal cell, frowning. Seiji knew the list of people privy to that number was incredibly short, and they all knew better than to call him without good reason. He answered, holding up a finger to Jesse and Seiji, as though he was hushing them like they were children who needed to be told. Even as children, both of them had known to be quiet when the adults were on a call.

“Robert speaking, may I ask who this is?”

Seiji and Jesse exchanged a rare glance. But this was an exceptionally rare circumstance. Robert knew everyone that had access to his personal number. But, apparently, he didn’t know this caller. As the caller spoke on, Robert’s frown deepened more and more.

“Say that again,” Robert said after a long time of listening. He was already striding back across the room, cutting through Seiji and Jesse like they weren’t there. “That name. Say it again.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Eugene, seriously, the power of friendship will only get you so far on this thing,” Nick grumbled, disappearing under the hood of the lumbering vehicle Eugene had driven since he’d gotten his license. “You should invest in a new car.”

“Why would I? He’s got his quirks but he drives. And get on outta there, I told you it’s the door that needs fixing.”

Nick didn’t look like he trusted Eugene one lick but he also didn’t seem to be finding anything _wrong_ under there so he popped his head out from under the hood again and closed it up.

“I can order the new handle for you cheap.”

“And install it for a couple of beers?”

“I’m still underage for like half a year, dude.”

“Aw, little baby’s not all grown up?” Eugene grinned and got a dirty rag thrown in his face. “Man, how long have I known you? I meant _root_ beer, it just sounds lamer to say that.” He tossed the rag back at Nick. “You just tell me what I owe you for it. How long do you think it’ll take?”

“A couple days for the part to get in but I can install it in an afternoon.” Nick grimaced and a hand jumped to his side.

“You should go get that checked, bro,” Eugene said, same as he’d been saying for days. But Nick shook his head.

“With what money? It’ll pass.”

“It hasn’t yet,” Eugene pointed out. But Nick didn’t want to talk about it. “All I’m saying is I can’t have you dying on me before you patch up my car, I need at least _one_ of the front doors to work.”

“You should have gotten that handle fixed a month ago when you broke it,” Nick scolded. Eugene always thought it was kinda cute when Nick tried scolding him. Same as when one of his little brothers tried bossing him around.

“I wasn’t the one who broke it, Marcus did. And it wasn’t such a big deal until the driver side door decided it didn’t like closing from the inside anymore.”

“You should get that fixed too,” Nick said. He was looking queasy. “Let the last time be a lesson.”

“Sure, sure, I’ll let you fix it up next. To help pay for that hospital bill.”

“I’m not—,”

“Come on, Nick, get in the car. I’m taking you to the emergency room. You look like you’re about to pass out.”

“I’m fine.” He wasn’t. He was so _not_ fine that he swayed. Alarmed, Eugene caught him under the arm.

 _That does it_.

Without listening to Nick’s protests, Eugene dragged him over to the car to deposit him inside. Conveniently, he couldn’t get out once the door was closed, even if he’d had the facilities to try. The handle was snapped clean off; there was no escape.

But Nick didn’t even protest when Eugene climbed into his car and closed the door—the latch catching just enough to theoretically hold the door in place for the drive—and started up driving. That was worrying. Nick had been fighting going to the doctor’s for days, ever since he’d accidentally let it slip how much pain he was in. And he’d only gotten worse at concealing it, which had to mean it was getting worse, not better.

Eugene glanced over at his passenger. He saw Nick slouched in the seat, pale and clammy, but his eyes were back on the road by the time Nick doubled over. Eugene caught the movement out of the corner of his eye but couldn’t move fast enough to catch his friend.

“Nick?” he asked with another worried glance over.

Nick groaned. But then he went unnaturally limp—Eugene’s eyes flicked between the road and the passenger seat frantically and repeatedly.

“Nick?” he asked again—no, it wasn’t a question, it was a shout of alarm and a plea all in one. Nick didn’t respond at all this time.

Eugene almost pulled over but what could he do for Nick? Nothing more than get him to a doctor as soon as possible. He kept driving, eyes now fixed determinedly ahead of him as a hand grappled over to Nick’s shoulder, feeling, at least, a warmth and a give in his body that was reassuring. When Eugene shoved him, Nick’s swayed, limp and unresponsive, and his phone clattered loudly to the floor.

Passed out.

That was all. Just passed out. Still fixable.

Eugene had never broken the speed limit so blatantly as he did then, just barely managing to tear into the hospital parking lot before things turned blurry and surreal. He didn’t know if he’d parked or just screeched to a halt in the front of the building. He didn’t know how he’d gotten Nick into the hospital. He didn’t know who took Nick or where they took him, all he knew when his mind came back to him was that he was staring down a hallway.

“Excuse me, sir?” a woman asked tentatively. He didn’t look at her. He was still looking down the hall. “Your friend is in good hands now,” she said softly, a gentle hand landing on his arm. “You did a good job getting him here, but you’re not done yet, we still need your help. Can you come over here and tell me who your friend is and what happened?”

Eugene nodded and let her draw him over to the counter, where he told her everything he knew. He grimaced when he told her _Esmeralda Cox_ in answer to the question about emergency contacts.

“I don’t know her number,” he said. But that wasn’t why he’d frowned. Even when Nick was still under her care, Esmeralda hadn’t taken care of him at all. She wasn’t a good emergency contact. “Here, let me put down mine and then I’ll go get his phone, it’s in my car. I can look up her number in it.”

The receptionist nodded and Eugene neatly wrote _Eugene Labao_ and his number under Esmeralda’s on the contact list, feeling a little silly filling out _best friend_ on the _relationship_ line.

It turned out Eugene had parked his car after all. Nick’s phone was under the seat, just like Eugene thought it would be; he could still remember the sound of it hitting the floor as Nick’s body jostled in an unsettling way.

Eugene shook the thought from his head and headed back inside. Hitting home summoned up a request for the password, showing over a lock screen of him and Bobby standing arm in arm with Nick at his high school graduation almost two years ago. The dork used his birthday as his passcode—Eugene had made fun of him countless times for it but he was glad now that Nick had never changed it. After finding Nick’s mother and transcribing her number on the form, he scrolled through the other contacts for anyone else that might be useful...

_EMERGENCY ONLY._

Eugene stared at the number, blinking, wondering if he was imagining it. It was too convenient to actually find an emergency number when looking for one. But it _was_ an emergency…

Eugene hit call. He couldn’t write down the number unless he had a name. And, maybe, whoever was attached to the nameless number would be able to help Nick out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i do like to send nick to the hospital, huh? i should even it up a bit one of these days smh


	4. Chapter 4

Seiji detested being treated like a child. He’d always detested being treated like a child, even when he was one. Even when he was so young a child, he couldn’t even reach the handle to his parents’ home office without help. And it was reasonable that he should dislike it so much because he’d never had to get used to it. At five years old, he’d been tasked with an important role in the family and in Katayama Energy. He’d been treated as an adult then, been talked to as if he was a grown-up who could understand what he was agreeing to. But here he was, being barred from a meeting because it was for _grown-ups_ and, at twenty, he apparently didn’t count as one anymore.

“It’s something big,” Jesse, on the couch beside him, said without concern. They’d been summoned here together and been told by Robert’s personal secretary to take a seat and wait. Like children waiting outside the principal’s office. “Think it has something to do with that phone call on Tuesday?”

Seiji didn’t say as much but he rather suspected that it did. Robert had left in a rush two days earlier upon receiving that call and ever since, he and Seiji’s parents had been in and out of an endless string of meetings. Lawyers had been involved in many of them. And Seiji had been left completely out of every single one of them.

Jesse gave up on trying to talk to him and they waited in silence for nearing forty minutes before Robert’s heavy office door opened. He looked grim. Seiji’s parents looked equally so. No lawyers today.

“Jesse, come on in,” Robert beckoned. Jesse shot another glance at Seiji, eyebrow raised, before standing and sweeping into his father’s office. What was all this about?

“Seiji,” Father said, “why don’t we go talk in your office?”

Seiji stood stiffly and led his parents to the office he had here at Coste Headquarters. It wasn’t as grand as Roberts, but it meant something to have his own space here, just as it meant something that Jesse had an office at Katayama Headquarters, right next to Seiji’s.

“May I ask what this is about?” Seiji asked when he pulled the door shut behind them. His parents exchanged a look. Unlike Seiji and Jesse’s looks, these were common things and meant much more than _that’s odd_ and _what’s this all about, then?_ These looks were entire conversations. As ever, Seiji couldn’t penetrate them. Mari and Daichi Katayama were the perfect pair in marriage and in business. They were everything Seiji and Jesse were not.

“Seiji,” Mother said gently, “why don’t you sit down? We should talk.”

Because it was his mother, Seiji resisted the irritation he felt at being asked to sit down in his own office. He sat. Because he respected his parents, he took a seat at one of the chairs around the low coffee table instead of taking his seat behind his desk. Mother and Father joined him around the table.

“There’s been a change of plans,” Father said. He was speaking in that matter-of-fact way that meant he was going to level with you, tell you the facts plainly and frankly. _Finally_. “As you know, we have an agreement with Robert, one that is beneficial to both our companies.”

Seiji nodded. He _did_ know this.

“But we never told you all the details,” Mother took over neatly. “About why it was necessary to tie not only our companies, but our families together.”

“You said it was for insurance,” Seiji said. “It’s a perfectly reasonable precaution to take, especially as the benefits of merging our companies are so great.”

“Yes, but it is not one we would have taken,” Mother told him seriously. “Not when you were so young. It is something we might have asked you to consider in due time, but we only drew up the marriage contract because we were unsure if we would _have_ due time.”

“I’m not sure that I understand what you mean.”

“Robert is a good man,” Father said. Seiji was used to this from them. They picked up the threads of conversation so easily between them it was clear how tightly tied they were to each other. “A solid business partner. Your mother and I trust him, respect him, we know he’ll make decisions for the good of our companies, smart decisions. Twenty is so young. Jesse has always been an extra variable in this dealing. We needed to make sure he’d have a reason to consider Katayama Energy as an equal priority. Fifteen years is a long time to spend building something only for a young and inexperienced boy to get greedy or reckless.”

“You’re so level-headed, Sei-kun. You always have been. We knew you’d be a stabilizer by his side. We invoked a marriage contract so that our prosperous relationship with Coste Motor stays that way instead of collapsing.”

“I still don’t understand how this is any different than you’ve always let me believe.”

“Marjorie Coste, Robert’s mother, never actually passed the company onto him. They had different visions for the future of Coste cars. Marjorie left it all to Jesse in her will. When she passed, when you boys were young and we were just entertaining the idea of a partnership between the companies…it was a wrench in the plan.”

“Yes,” Seiji said. “I understand why you made the decision you did.”

Seiji could tell from the new look that passed between his parents that they hadn’t wanted his understanding or been asking for his forgiveness or some such nonsense. Not surprising. They never had. It was simply a part of Seiji’s duty to his family and their company. They’d never asked for him to forgive them and Seiji was glad for that. They were all in agreement that what had been asked of Seiji either warranted or deserved no forgiveness. Seiji had never quite settled on which he believed more. But if it wasn’t understanding they were seeking by telling him this, what was it?

“Seiji…” Mother hedged. “You were promised to the oldest grandchild of Marjorie Coste. The wording in the will was clear, she left it all to Robert’s oldest son, not Robert. We worded the marriage contract in a similar manner. The oldest son of the Katayama household is to be wed to the oldest son of, and heir to, the Coste household.”

“I’m aware.” How could he not be? He’d had the entire document memorized since childhood, and the portions that were ever the same despite Seiji’s and Jesse’s edits and revisions were the barebones that Mari, Daichi, and Robert had drawn up together as a part of their business dealings.

“But, as it happens, that’s not Jesse.”

“How do you mean?” Seiji felt on the edge of amused. Was this his parents’ idea of a prank? If so, they were even less adept at humor than Seiji was.

“There’s another boy born to Robert. Born seven months _before_ Jesse was.”

“I’m sorry? I don’t follow. How could Robert have another child? He—,” _oh._ “An affair,” he realized.

Mother and Father nodded grimly. Had they known of this affair before now? Was that why the wording in the contract had been an exact match to the wording in Marjorie’s will? A precaution? But, no. If his parents had known Robert had cheated on his wife, they wouldn’t have gone into business with him. That sort of breach of trust was something they’d detest.

Mother looked troubled when she spoke again. She’d been troubled this entire time but Seiji hadn’t fully comprehended it. “Robert was unaware of this boy’s existence until…very recently.”

_That name. Say it again._

The phone call. So his bastard son had called to try and cash in.

“Legally speaking, he’s already inherited all of Coste Motor Company and the lawyers are saying it’s just about impossible to get it back from him at this point, despite that Marjorie’s intent was to give her company to Jesse…Well, her intentions don’t carry any weight now. Her last will and testament does.”

“So what does this mean?” Seiji asked the obvious question. “For me. What does this mean?”

“It means you’ll be meeting your fiancé just as soon as he’s out of the hospital.”

Seiji closed his eyes, calmed his pulse. It was too much to hope that he’d be released from this obligation just because it was to a different man than he’d expected. All these years with Jesse. And none of it meant anything, none of their bargaining and compromising and careful revisions to their contract meant anything because Jesse had never legally had anything to do with that contract.

“His name,” Father said, “is Nicholas Cox.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen, I fully believe that Jesse is older than Nick in canon because he's a year above in school even if they're technically both 16 there, but sometimes you gotta mess with the timeline a little to make shit work ✌️


	5. Chapter 5

Nick had woken up to a line of surprises waiting for his attention. The first was that he wasn’t in his shitty apartment. The second was that Robert Coste of Coste Motor Company was in the unfamiliar and sterile room Nick _was_ in with him. And the surprises had just kept coming.

Eugene had, in all likelihood, saved Nick’s life in driving him to the hospital when he did. If Eugene had left, Nick would have been alone, the shop all closed and no one else around. He’d have keeled over before calling an ambulance and wasting the money. According to Eugene, Nick _had_ quite literally keeled over on the drive here. Nick’s stubborn insistence that he’d sooner die than to go into debt over medical bills wouldn’t have been as funny once he’d actually died of a ruptured appendix—Bobby still didn’t think it was funny. He’d burst into tears when Nick had told him solemnly: _I’d have gone out doing what I love, at least. Not wasting money_. It was impressive, the doctors said, that Nick had made it so long without coming in or keeling over in a more permanent way than he actually had during the ride over.

So Eugene had saved Nick’s life. But he’d also changed it beyond all recognition.

When Nick was young, his mom had explained that he was a mistake. It hadn’t been so much an explanation as a rant, in actuality. A lament for the rich bastard that had knocked her up and left her before she’d known. A complaint about the child she’d been saddled with. He’d been too young to understand it then but he understood it now. How deep her apathy for him went. She’d done him a favor by even having him. And she’d done him another by giving him a number.

On his eighteenth birthday, Nick had gotten two gifts from his mother. An eviction notice and a number to call in case of emergencies. He’d never been stupid enough to think it was hers. He’d never expected it to be Robert Coste’s either.

Now, just barely released from the hospital after a ten-day stay, Nick was in the back of a bougie black car, slick as anything and looking like the small offspring of a limousine, on his way to the headquarters of Coste Motor. One of the biggest car companies in the world. _His_ company.

Nick still wasn’t sure he believed that. Robert had had a lot to say to him in recent days. There’d been lawyers, too, with some legal mumbo jumbo to spout at him, as if he could process a single word they’d said. The gist of it came down to this: on his eighteenth birthday, Nick had been turned out by his mother and on his twentieth, he’d inherited a multi-billion dollar company from a paternal grandmother he’d never met and who hadn’t known he existed. But, on a technicality, she’d left him everything. And it had been his for seven months without anyone any the wiser.

The car pulled to a stop in front of a giant building Nick had never let himself dwell on before no matter how many times he’d crossed past it when wandering around downtown. It loomed over the street and gleamed in the sun and looked like everything Nick had always been promised he could never have.

A man opened the door for Nick and beckoned him out. Promises could be remade. Nick stepped from the car and followed the man through sparkling glass doors leading into this new promise. As he climbed into the elevator, Nick was struck with the same panic he’d had when Eugene had convinced him onto his first rollercoaster and the bars had lowered, locking him in. There was no way back now, all he could do was ride this out. He swallowed down his spiked nerves as the elevator shot him up to the top floor.

_Now all that’s left is the drop._

A towering man with swooping blond hair and intense blue eyes met him when the doors slid open and Nick was passed from the possession of his silent escort to Robert Coste. His father. Nick’s mother had said it was Robert. But Nick had never had any real reason to believe her and she’d never spoken of it much. A father and a company. And a fortune. All things he’d never had before but were supposedly his now.

He didn’t know what to do with any of it. There wasn’t a lot he _could_ do. So he just kept riding out the shock and letting himself get ushered through this new life.

“Afternoon, Nicholas,” Robert said, kindly enough.

“Hey,” Nick nodded.

“Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

“He’s right this way.”

Nick followed Robert down the hall and they stopped at an impressive door. Closed. Robert knocked and a voice answered for him to come in. But Robert didn’t go in. Only Nick did. He shot a nervous glance back at his father, holding the door open for him, before taking the invitation to step through it. Not because he felt any security in Robert Coste but because he felt even _less_ comfortable faced with this impeccable office with its cruel edges and cold air.

The door shut softly behind him and Nick stood facing a tall, beautiful man from which all the coldness and cruelty of this room seemed to stem.

Nick’s fiancé.

Another one of the endless shocks he’d received not even a fortnight ago. Another thing he’d never possessed and was now expected to accept and adjust to seamlessly. This seemed like the biggest, most impossible change of all, despite everything.

“Nicholas Cox,” the man said. He was already standing, one hand trailing on the gorgeous wood surface of his desk as he walked around from behind it. Nick narrowed his eyes. He recognized the power play, the way his fiancé had been sure to start this meeting from a clear vantage of authority, tucked away behind his desk and coming to greet Nick as the visitor. Technically, wasn’t this office Nick’s? It was in _his_ company’s building. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Nick snorted at the blatant lie and the outstretched hand. Dark brows furrowed at him briefly when he ignored the hand, but fine features rearranged themselves neatly and the hand dropped in a way that made it feel like Nick was the one being scorned. And the scorn continued. Neither of them said anything more to try and bridge the pit Nick had just created. Instead, Nick said something to widen it.

“It’s not a pleasure and we both know it, don’t bother acting pleasant.”

“Excuse me?” This time, the change of expression lasted longer than a millisecond, eyebrows raised and eyes surprised.

“We’ve met before and you weren’t pleasant at the time, I’m not buying your act now just because you’ve got to play nice. I prefer seeing people for what they are.”

“We’ve met? Forgive me, but you’ll have to remind me of when. I’m quite sure I’ve never met someone such as yourself.” With this, there was a flick of eyes over Nick, taking him all in from scuffed Converse to ripped jeans to faded black shirt to his uppercut hair, brown and messy atop his head. No, Nick wasn’t the sort of person the man in front of him would associate with.

“Yeah, we met. And you royally screwed me over.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You should be.” It hadn’t been meant as an apology in earnest. Only an exclamation. An _I beg your pardon?_ An _I’m sorry but you’re an imbecile who is speaking nonsense that I have no idea how to respond to._ But Nick enjoyed the frown his acceptance of the apology got.

“You still have failed to mention when this happened or who you are.”

“Or why you should remember? You shouldn’t, I guess. What’s it to you if you say a few mean words on an interview and cost a small mechanic’s shop so much business we almost had to close down? I’m just lucky my boss cares more about people than you do or I’d have been out on my ass for bringing your wrath down on the shop.” Nick had almost been fired but the cameras up around the shop and yard for security all showed that Seiji was a dick and Nick hadn’t done much to earn his wrath. He’d almost been fired anyway when business got so thin, the shop was hardly able to bring in the money to keep him on, but he was the best employee Joe had so he’d been kept on. After a while, word of mouth and local reputation revitalized them from the hit the Whittaker’s Whispers interview had delivered them.

“Yes.” Irritation was dragging down the previously cold but polite voice. “Tell me why I should remember you because I _don’t.”_

“But now you do,” Nick observed. He could tell that mentioning the shop and the interview had sparked some memory, likely vague. But it was there. “I wish I could say it was a pleasure to meet you again, but it’s not. And I wish I could call you by your name but I can’t do that either. I was told not to _dirty_ it by ever speaking it again.”

Seiji Katayama flushed with ruddy cheeks over the clear chastisement. Good. He’d probably forgotten that little remark but Nick hadn’t.

“So, Mr. Katayama, it’s not a pleasure to meet you again but I guess neither of us gets a choice about this, do we?”

“No.” Katayama’s face went stony. “We don’t.”


	6. Chapter 6

Seiji gestured to the couch and Nicholas sat. Seiji did likewise. It was obvious that Nicholas Cox was not keen on Seiji or this engagement. That was equal parts convenient and inconvenient, just as the opposite would have been. There were other things about this situation as a whole, however, that made it far more inconvenient than anything else.

“I’m not sure how much has been explained to you,” Seiji began. He wasn’t permitted to finish.

“I was given the rundown,” Nicholas interrupted. “The company’s mine. And so are you.”

“Not quite.” Seiji caught himself clenching his jaw and forced it to relax. “My hand is yours, as yours is mine. But you’ll find that there’s more to this arrangement than that.”

“Right. It’s about bringing the—our—companies together.”

“Correct. The next time we meet, it will be to sort out our contract so that we may marry on schedule and our companies will be secured together.” And then Nicholas would see that Seiji was not simply _his._ He’d see all the moves to this dance Seiji had been engaged in for years with the wrong partner.

“Sure, sure. But there’s one thing I don’t get. Inheriting the company makes sense—I mean, it’s crazy, but with the wording in the will, I can see it. But how are Jesse and I interchangeable in your engagement contract?”

“I thought you said the situation was explained to you.”

“It was.” But he either hadn’t listened or hadn’t understood, Nicholas’s short answer seemed to say. And, infuriatingly, most of all, it seemed to say that he didn’t care.

“The marriage contract promised me a union with the oldest son and heir to the Coste throne, so to speak. That, as fate would have it, is you.”

“And I get that. But isn’t it Jesse’s signature on the thing?”

“No. Not yet. The marriage contract was a part of the business deal between my parents and your father. It is their signatures on the contract thus far. On our wedding day, we will finalize the agreement by signing our contract by our own hand.”

“Didn’t I need to give my consent to be bargained away as part of a deal?”

“I did not need to and neither did you. It’s part of the tradition of business through marriage that allows for arranged marriages like mine and Jesse’s—mine and yours, I should say.”

“Tradition of business through marriage.” Nicholas pulled a face. Full of judgment and disdain. If he had come in with this face and this line—said with more contempt than someone like him ought to be able to muster—Seiji would have recognized him immediately as the worthless, anonymous scruff that had passed comments to his fellow over Seiji’s engagement when he’d picked up his car from the horrid little mechanic’s he’d had to leave it at for new tires.

“As it is a tradition _your_ family practices, I suggest you get used to the idea of it.”

“It’s a little fucked up, that’s all I’m saying. That I’ve been engaged since I was teeny tiny without even knowing it and that’s totally legal. I wasn’t even under Robert’s care, how come he gets to sell me off?”

“His name is on your birth certificate. You are his son. You’ve inherited the company, proving you a part of this family and this tradition, thus validating your participation in the marriage contract.”

It was more complicated than all that, but if Nicholas was too simple to understand the lawyers’ explanations, then hearing the same from Seiji wouldn’t do him any favors either. So Seiji didn’t get into the specific laws about business through marriage or the intricacies of the will and the marriage contract. But Nicholas nodded, satisfied enough with this simple explanation.

The meeting was brief. An inconsequential and empty introduction to each other akin to posturing before they started the sparring. That would come in due time. Three days’, to be exact. On Monday, they would attempt to hammer out at least an outline of a contract that Seiji and Jesse had taken fifteen years to perfect—so far as such a contract could ever be perfected. From there, they would have seven days before it would have to be in working order for the wedding.

The wedding. Which was still meant to take place March 4th, a mere fortnight away.

“Well, Mr. Katayama,” Nicholas said, standing. Seiji tracked the way his hand made a jump for his right side as he did so, but he dropped the hand before it made it there, fingers flexing in seeming objection. “I hear I’ll be seeing you on Monday.”

“I look forward to it.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I’d thank you to stop telling me how I feel.”

“You know I try to take your wishes into account,” Nicholas drawled, hand resting against the door and lazy smile growing on his face, “Mr. Katayama.”

With that, Nicholas Cox, Seiji’s true fiancé, left the room. Seiji glared after him, resenting the lick of heat returning to his cheeks. Resenting the way this nobody said his name in a way that felt like a chastisement. He remembered it vaguely—telling that grease-stained and scruffy-haired mechanic not to say his name. But how was he meant to have known that he was talking to his fiancé—a man of a higher social standing than even himself? Seiji didn’t believe he deserved to be scolded now over something he’d said to someone of no consequence years before.

Seiji did not immediately follow after Nicholas. He stayed in his office until the sting in his cheeks had subsided sufficiently. It took rather longer than he would have liked.

Pulling open his door at last, Seiji was confronted with the sight of a man draped up against the wall that he had no interest in seeing. Jesse. There was no coincidence in his being here now, but he maintained an unconcerned air as he pushed off the wall and smiled at Seiji—one of his slippery smiles that never included anyone else in the joke.

“How’d it go?” he asked.

“About as you’d imagine.”

“I saw him on his way out. Not much to look at, is he? I’m terribly sorry about your downgrade, darling. Life simply isn’t fair sometimes.”

Jesse’s simpering sympathies meant nothing. He didn’t mean them, only meant to transfer some of his own turmoil from his _downgrade_ onto Seiji.

“We should count ourselves lucky that Nicholas was found before our wedding.”

“Kicking a man when he’s down? That’s ungentlemanly, love.”

“I’ve got a name,” Seiji snapped. “You ought to call me by it.” Seiji let out a breath, trying to dissipate his ire. Ire that was not, strictly speaking, for this particular Coste. “And imagine if we’d been wed, Jesse. You would still be left dethroned but you’d also be married to me for no good reason. Neither of us, nor our companies, would have benefited at all from our union.”

“And what of our romance?”

“You don’t actually want to marry me.” Of this, Seiji was certain.

“But you were meant to be _mine,”_ Jesse’s voice changed on the last word, his expression dropping from breezy to stormy.

“I’ve had quite enough of being talked about like a possession for today, thank you.” Seiji started walking down the hall, shoes tapping disapprovingly against the hardwood floor. The elevator would be long-vacant of scruffy nobodies—scruffy _somebodies—_ by now and Seiji wanted to get home. He’d rather start drafting his points of interest in his new marriage contract in his own room than at his office in a building that Nicholas owned.

Jesse stalked after him. “I hear you’re keeping our wedding date. Actually, the way I hear it, you’re keeping _everything_ but me. That bastard has taken my office at Katayama Headquarters, he’s taken my role in this company, he’s taken my fiancé, and the both of you are keeping the wedding _I_ planned, from date to napkins.”

“I understand your frustrations, Jesse,” Seiji said, a flicker of genuine sympathy igniting at Jesse’s twisted, angry face. His eyes, always bright and blue as the sky, looked rather more like ponds just now. “For what consolation it’s worth, I’m no happier about this change in plans than you are.”

Seiji liked plans, liked setting things all out in their place. He liked having plenty of time to get it all right. He’d had years with Jesse, and maybe they hadn’t ever gotten their relationship ‘right,’ but they’d had a solid and detailed plan that had been years in the making. He had seven days to achieve that same level of planning with a new boy who knew nothing of this world. _And_ he slouched. It did not bode well.

The elevator dinged and Seiji stepped in. Jesse did not.

“Just keep that hellion in line.” Jesse’s voice was cold. “For all our sakes.”

 _Keep him in line._ That was the plan, wasn’t it? Robert was more grateful than ever for the deal he’d brokered all that time ago, the insurance Seiji’s parents had needed in order to collaborate with him. Now, it was insurance for them all. Seiji didn’t get years to build a plan with Nicholas. They couldn’t afford that kind of time; who knew what damage Nicholas could do in a single year? In two? In any amount of time, no matter how big or small?

They were sticking to the original timetable for Seiji’s marriage, the only changed variable would be his groom. And perhaps he should put some effort into making the wedding more his own, less Jesse’s. The press release on this would be a mess no matter what, but the more he could do to convince the public that Nicholas wasn’t some knock-off stand-in for Jesse, the better the transition would go over.

Seiji drove home with the hood on his car down, a luxury he didn’t often indulge in for the sake of his appearance. But he needed the wind rushing past him today. The illusion of freedom. He’d always been part of a business deal, but, for some reason, being treated as damage control felt a lot worse than that. At least he’d _known_ Jesse, even if he hadn’t liked him.


	7. Chapter 7

Nick drove to Coste Headquarters on Monday morning for his meeting. It was surreal driving up to this impeccable tower in the beat-up old car Joe let him borrow from the yard when he needed it, but it was better than being ferried around in a baby limo.

There was no one waiting for him today but he arrived at the top floor fine on his own. He made for the same room he’d been let into yesterday, but a secretary ushered him into the room next to it instead. Another—even more impressive—office.

“Your office, sir,” the secretary said. “ Seiji will be here shortly. Would you like anything while you wait?”

“Uh. I’m good. Thank you…?”

“Jane.”

“Thank you, Jane.”

Jane smiled in acknowledgment and ducked out of the room. _My office_.

Nick was still doing a lap of the place, running fingers over fine surfaces and picking up books and knickknacks, when a knock sounded from the door and Katayama stepped in, looking ready to take someone to court in the tailored gray suit he wore.

“Good morning,” Nick greeted. An arched eyebrow rose at him.

“Is it?”

“I thought so.” Nick gestured out the huge window. And, man, what a view. “Do you have something against clear skies?”

“Not particularly. I only assumed you might point out that this is not a good morning for either of us, considering the company we must spend it in.”

“There’s that,” Nick agreed. “But we’ve just got to go over a contract. No biggie, right?”

Katayama didn’t look like he appreciated Nick’s sentiment _or_ his vocabulary.

“Shall we sit?”

“Uh,” Nick glanced around, finding a seating arrangement much like the one in Katayama’s office. But the table was so low and the couches so far apart…

“Sure.” Nick sat behind the large desk. _His_ large desk. Katayama sat primly across the desk but a muscle in his jaw jumped at the reversal of power from their last meeting.

“As per tradition, we have full right to revise and add to our marriage contract in whatever manner we so choose.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And when we marry, we sign the final document and cement it into a legally binding contract between us that contains the guidelines and expectations of our married life.”

“Okay?”

“We have a week to agree on terms that suit us both.”

“Oh, like chores and stuff. Yeah, okay, I gotcha.” Nick nodded.

But ‘chores and stuff’ turned out to be a lot more complicated than Nick had anticipated. They spent the entire morning going back and forth about minutia Nick had never thought about before. Which side of the bed they’d each sleep on, whether Nick would move into Katayama’s apartment or they’d move into a new place together— _I’m not about to move in with you, I’m sure you can understand that I have certain standards of living and I’m unconvinced whatever hole you live in meets them—_ who’d cook, on what nights they should hire a cook, dietary concerns— _you can eat whatever you want, man, but I’m not giving up burgers, put that in your dumb contract_ —and, yes, actual chores.

There were a couple bigger things too, like the signing of a prenup, grounds for divorce, and, subsequently, an entire hour was spent on the topic of violence and abuse.

“Mr. Katayama, shut up,” Nick groaned, banging his head down against the shining wood of his desk. “Isn’t it already a part of marriage that you’re not supposed to hurt your spouse?”

“You would think so. However, this is a business through marriage contract, and so it’s best to have everything accounted for.”

Nick didn’t really want to ask if Katayama meant that these contracts legally said anything not specifically written in the contract flew or if he thought regular marriage wasn’t guarantee enough. Nick supposed it wasn’t, really, but he wouldn’t ‘enact knowing and malicious violence’ against his spouse, even if that spouse was Seiji Katayama, Dickface Extraordinaire.

“It’s one,” Nick said, catching a glance at Katayama’s expensive watch from where his wrist lay on the table. “Can we have a lunch break or something?”

“Very well,” Katayama sighed, clearly disappointed at Nick’s lack of commitment to this stupid contract. Seriously, who needed it in a contract to leave the other’s toiletries alone? No one. Katayama was insane. And Nick had to spend the rest of his life with this guy.

He tried not to think about that specific detail too hard. Tried not to think about romance and whether it was something he wanted. But that was easy. He’d always avoided that sort of thinking. His mom’s romances had all been awful and Nick didn’t want anything like the relationships she’d had with any of those boyfriends. Or the one she’d had with Robert. And he didn’t even know if love was a thing he could have. So he’d gotten good at leaving those ponderings untouched in a secluded corner of his mind. It made it easy to ignore the lost chance at some unrealistic love story marrying Katayama meant for him.

Nick was relieved when Katayama didn’t order lunch in for them, and instead left his office with a brisk _I expect you’ll be here in forty-five minutes with no more excuses._

After making a rude gesture at Katayama’s retreating back, Nick pulled out his phone and searched through his contact list for someone to tell about the bullshit he’d just endured. The bullshit that was, apparently, only the start of this contract extravaganza. He might have called Eugene, but he’d be in class right now. Besides, there was a favor he needed to ask, and, as great as Eugene was, he wasn’t the one to ask for it.

Bobby picked up right away.

“Nick?” he asked. “What’s up?”

“You would not believe the day I’ve had. Any chance you’re up for a slice of pizza? I’ve only got a forty-minute lunch break so if you’re not downtown, don’t worry about it.”

“Don’t be silly, I want to hear more about Seiji!”

“No, you don’t. I don’t have anything nicer to say about your weirdo celebrity crush than I did over the weekend.”

“Or for the last how many years?” Bobby teased. “I know he’s a bit…aloof and cold, but he’s brilliant.”

“His parents are, you mean,” Nick corrected, standing up. He deemed it safe to venture to the elevator now. Katayama ought to have cleared out. “I know you’re in love with all their clean energy stuff but that’s not Katayama. That’s his company. I’m not sure he’s contributed anything to the whole shebang—oh shit!”

“What?”

“Fuck, I think he heard that.”

“Nick! I thought you were alone!”

Nick mumbled off Bobby’s scoldings about _kind words_ and _situational awareness_ as he jabbed the button for the first floor. It was possible that the movement he’d caught just before the doors slid shut was nothing, possible it wasn’t Katayama. But it had been his office door that had moved, the elbow of a sharp gray suit jacket that he’d seen behind it.

Nick kept Bobby on the line the entire walk to the pizza place on the corner, which Bobby found easily enough, hanging up his phone when he burst into the little restaurant and saw Nick holding down a booth for them. Bobby slid into the wrap-around bench to smoosh Nick in a hug that would have anyone believing they hadn’t seen each other in months.

“Are you ready to order?” Bobby asked, already scooting back out of the booth. Nick caught his friend and held him in place, nodding at the waiter coming over with a pizza. He set it down in front of them on the wire rack he carried. Even the pizza joints around here were something else.

“My treat,” Nick said with a grin he couldn’t suppress when Bobby reached for his wallet.

“But—!”

“I’m loaded now, remember?” Nick flashed a platinum credit card at Bobby from his own beaten-to-shit wallet. Bobby opened his mouth in a rounded shape of surprise. So, no, he hadn’t remembered. It wasn’t easy to get used to. At least, it wasn’t easy to really believe.

“Well, thank you for lunch,” Bobby said, reaching for a slice of pizza.

“Yeah, no problem.” It wasn’t often that Nick was in any position to treat people. Money was always such a problem, had been all his life. And now, suddenly, it wasn’t.

A part of him resented how big of a difference having money made. Already, all his old problems were all but fixed. The hospital bill had been nothing at all to Robert Coste. And then Nick had been outfitted with credit cards and access to bank accounts that were somehow his. The price of this pizza used to be a dearer cost to him than that hospital bill was to him now. If his mom had had that kind of money, maybe things would have been okay…

Thinking like that made ugly and complicated feelings stir. But sitting here eating with one of his best friends, using his insane wealth for this small kindness Bobby had shown him more times than he could count over the years…it tamped down the complicated feelings and made him glad.

“The pizza is totally a bribe,” Nick conceded around a mouthful of cheese. “I need your help.”

“Of course! What can I do?”

“My fiancé wanted it in the contract that I’d dress, and I quote, like a civilized human being.”

Bobby choked on his water.

“I got out of that by campaigning that _he_ stop dressing like he’s got a stick up his—,”

“Nick! You did not! Please tell me you didn’t say that to him.”

“I did. And it worked. It’s in the contract that all bargaining about personal appearance is to be done outside of the contract. But he did say I can’t wear anything I own to any business dealings and meetings and whatevers. So. Come shopping with me?”

“A makeover,” Bobby gasped with a delighted clap of his hands. “Yes!”

* * *

“I trust you had a good lunch?” Katayama said. It was an accusation more than a question.

“Yeah, the pizza down the street is great. Ever been?”

Katayama wrinkled his nose.

“Didn’t think so. Wanna move out of the way so we can go in or are we finishing the meeting out here?”

“I’ve been waiting here for twenty minutes.”

“Whoops?”

“Shall we add punctuality to our contract?”

Katayama stepped away from the door to Nick’s office and Nick pulled it open, following Katayama into the room. They did not end up adding a punctuality rule to their stupid contract. But they filled it up with plenty of other stupid stuff. Hence why it was called a _stupid_ contract _._

“I already agreed our house can be a no-shoes house, you don’t need to tell me the exact wording you’re using to write that,” Nick complained after the fifth rendition of the shoe rule Katayama had proposed. “I don’t care.”

“You ought to,” he countered. “Every word in this contract will rule our marriage.”

“Rule our marriage. God, it sounds awful. Can’t anything be left to figure out later? We’re not even married yet, how can we know what we’ll face? Can’t we just…let it happen?”

“Absolutely not. I won’t let you rule the rest of my life. Nothing can be left to chance.”

“I’m not trying to—it’s your contract that’s ruling the rest of our lives, you just said so!”

“Yes, which is why it’s important that we are both in agreement over every last word in it.”

Nick groaned in frustration but it was no use fighting.

“Fine, add onto your shoe rule that I get three warnings a month about wearing shoes before you take legal action. And also put it in there that, under extenuating circumstances, taking off shoes is not necessary.”

Nick had meant to be tiresome but Katayama nodded and worked these new conditions into the contract. When Nick had agreed to the latest drafting of it, Katayama looked up from the paper, pen hesitating over the contract before being set down neatly.

“Then,” Katayama said distastefully, “there’s the matter of sex. I’m willing to enter negotiations for how often it is expected to occur and appropriate alternatives to sate your,” a slight crinkling of the nose, “baser desires.”

“Sex is non-negotiable,” Nick said without missing a beat.

“Yes,” Katayama sighed. “Jesse said the same thing. But negotiate it, we will. Our wedding night is a given, and the arrangement with Jesse for the honeymoon was three times; I can assure you that you won’t be getting any more than that out of me. Jesse worked for _years_ to get up to that. I require your monogamy for five years, while we are under the most scrutiny. After that, you may take on lovers if you must, though I’d prefer if you’d simply find one night stands for your pleasures, as it gets much too messy when feelings are involved. Your utmost discretion will, of course, be expected. If anyone catches wind of a love affair, all privileges are to be taken away at once and you will _not_ get a second chance. Now, let’s talk about those first five years, shall we?”

Nick blinked at the man across from him, completely unaffected and talking about their sex lives like a business deal.

“No,” he said, unable to come up with anything more to say for a long moment. “I meant sex is non-negotiable. If you don’t want it, we don’t do it.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You don’t want to have sex with me, do you?”

“Not at all, but I am not unreasonable—,”

“No, see, it’s unreasonable for you to have to have sex when you don’t want to. That’s not really consent.”

“Noble though your worries are, Nicholas, I assure you you would in no way be raping me. I’ve an obligation and I’ve made my peace with it, I will consent to whatever we agree on now.”

“Obligation isn’t consent, Mr. Katayama. I don’t want your sense of duty. I don’t want a contract outlining how many times you’ll force yourself to have sex with me.”

Katayama froze, eyes wide and fixed on Nick in disbelief. It took him longer to recover from this and find something to say in response than Nick had ever seen him take before.

“Very well then, I will strike that clause from our contract. But you should understand, without it, I am not bound to perform even should you change your mind later.”

“Yeah, that’s the point. If you wouldn’t do it without a contract forcing you, you shouldn’t have to do it at all.”

Katayama didn’t say anything to that, but his black eyes cut into Nick as though he wanted to see through him. Then he gave a sharp nod and took up his silver pen again. Nick had never seen a pen so special it was kept in its own special little box, but Katayama’s was. It looked heavy but Katayama wielded it now without the suggestion of weight Nick had seen starting to drag it down as this meeting had stretched on, as it had come hurtling toward this question.

It was impressive that Katayama managed to look both relieved and suspicious at Nick’s answer to it. What had it been like, Nick wondered, growing up debating every detail of a life with someone you didn’t want to marry, both of you trying to shape it into something you could live with?

“Agreeable though I find your terms to be,” Katayama said while still finishing off a last flourish of writing, “I am unwilling to negotiate the period of monogamy down from five years. With the way our engagement has happened, there will be plenty of whispers about us, people trying to undermine our partnership and drive a spike between our companies as a result. We can’t allow them to find any leverage on us. I really ought to be asking for a longer period than five years, but I absolutely won’t go lower than that.”

“I thought you were striking that clause from the contract.”

“I struck the portion about my participation in sex, which leaves yours still needing to be discussed. Five years, and then you may take lovers. As I said, I would prefer that you do not have a long term lover, but I’m open to negotiations.”

“I—you’re insane,” Nick said, unable to keep his face from heating at Katayama’s steady stare as he questioned Nick about hookups and whores.

“You find five years of monogamy unreasonable?” It was clear Katayama didn’t care, wasn’t going to move even a month down from that number. It almost felt to Nick like he was being mocked, being told _I told you so_ over throwing away his only chance at sex during those ‘first five years.’

“You can have my monogamy for longer than five years. Jesus. It’s yours forever now, isn’t it? I’m marrying _you_. I’m not—I’ve seen what cheating can do, haven’t I? I don’t want to be that. I’ve never wanted to be that.” Nick remembered the bitter anger of his mother, remembered the hollow ache of not being wanted by either of his parents. No, Katayama was right. Affairs got messy. Nick didn’t want to leave behind that kind of mess, that kind of pain.

“You intend to stay faithful to me for the duration of our marriage—our _lives?_ Without any benefits?” Katayama looked positively baffled.

“Don’t you plan to do the same?” Nick asked awkwardly, shrugging. “Or have we not gotten to the part about your one night stands yet?”

Bafflement turned to offense.

“I’ve dedicated my life to this deal, I’m committing to it fully.”

“And I’m not a cheater.”

“It’s not cheating if it’s in the contract—,”

“And it’s not a shirking of your duty if it’s in the contract that you get to have sexy times, either.” Nick nodded at Katayama’s clear intent to protest. “Exactly, it _feels_ that way, even if it’s in the contract. I don’t want to marry you but I _am_ marrying you. And I’ve tried all my life to be a decent person. You and your contract aren’t gonna fuck that up. Let’s just…strike that whole business from the contract and let it all stand the way it would in any normal marriage, okay?”

“If you insist,” Katayama agreed slowly. He wrote even slower, like he was giving Nick time to change his mind.

“So what’s next?”

Katayama glanced down at his watch. “We’re almost done for the day. There’s just one last matter we should attend to before then.”

“Yeah?”

“Kissing.”

“We’ve got to kiss on our wedding day, right?”

“Obviously.”

“And that’s it. So you can write that down and we’ll call it good. I’m starting to feel stir crazy in this office.”

“You’ll have to get used to it,” Katayama mused softly and Nick supposed he was right. This was his life now. Not working with his hands on cars all day, but sitting behind a desk making business deals and decisions about cars. When he’d dropped by the shop to grab the spare car, he’d had to tell Joe he should keep the new employee on because Nick wouldn’t be able to come back to work there.

“Are we done?” Nick asked, trying to prompt Katayama into scribbling whatever nonsense he needed to down so they could leave.

“I believe…There are other situations, you understand, where kissing might be a necessary demonstration of our unity.”

“Oh. Okay. I’m fine with whatever you think counts as necessary.”

Katayama pursed his lips thoughtfully before bending over the contract again, pen in hand. But he hesitated. And then looked back up, putting his pen down lightly.

“If you’re not opposed to it, perhaps that can be a matter we…let happen.” Katayama’s gaze was steady but Nick was as baffled by this suggestion as Katayama had been about not writing sex into the contract. “It’s tricky to write something of this nature into the contract with enough lenience to allow for every instance in which such a thing would be relevant and necessary. There could be disagreement between us over what constitutes as necessary and having the capability to get into legal action over it—,” Katayama pinched the bridge of his nose. Was this a point he was used to arguing with Jesse over? But no way _Katayama_ was the one campaigning for a less rigid definition of what counted as ‘necessary kissing’ in that scenario. “I only think it would be simpler to have those sorts of disagreements on a domestic level rather than a—potentially—legal one.”

“Yeah, for sure,” Nick agreed. “Sounds easier that way. So…we’re done?”

“Yes,” Katayama said, storing his pen away in its box. “Our meeting is finished. Please endeavor to be on time tomorrow. We’re far from finished with our contract.”

“Fuck, you’re kidding me,” Nick moaned.

“Eight, Nicholas, and not a minute later. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Katayama tidied all the papers into a neat pile and then vacated his chair, leaving Nick to glare alone at the contract.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you recognize where [my inspiration](https://coppermind.net/wiki/Steris_Harms) for Seiji’s marriage contract came from, probably WE need to draw up a marriage contract so hmu lmao 
> 
> ~~and actually you know what? a Mistborn era 2 Fence au would _slap_~~


	8. Chapter 8

Today had not gone how Seiji had anticipated it would. Nicholas had complained copiously over the tedium of the contract, which he’d expected. And then he’d left Seiji waiting after lunch, which wasn’t surprising. But their closing topic of the meeting had gone, in every way, directly opposite to what Seiji had been prepared for. What he was used to. He and Jesse had revisited the topic of physical intimacy time and again and neither of them were ever happy with it. Seiji had expected much the same from Nicholas.

He’d planned his strategy carefully, bringing up the topic for debate on their first day so they would have six more to revisit and revise it, but holding it until the end of the meeting so that Seiji could propose his terms and, when Nicholas tried to haggle with him, Seiji could end out the meeting, giving a clear statement that he would not be easily persuaded out of his terms while also giving Nicholas a night to think on it.

But none of that had transpired. No haggling. No need for revisions. Nicholas had proposed they strike it all from the contract. _Nicholas_ had. Not Seiji.

They were better terms than Seiji could have hoped for. Perhaps that was why he’d elected to leave specificities of kissing out of the contract as well. He wasn’t sure if he’d felt like he owed Nicholas his trust in not demanding specific terms about kissing or if he actually believed Nicholas was trustworthy in this matter and wouldn’t take advantage of the lack of legal guidelines around it. He wasn’t sure which was more foolish.

* * *

Seiji arrived at the door to Nicholas’s office at eight o’clock on the dot. Nicholas drudged out of the elevator several minutes late.

If they could just meet in Seiji’s office, it wouldn’t have been such a problem. It would have been annoying and discourteous, but Seiji would not have had to bear the humiliation of standing outside someone else’s office, waiting to be let in like a child. But, of course, it was Nicholas’s office that they had to meet in. Just as it had been Seiji’s office—his corner office with the corner window at Katayama Headquarters—when he’d been—falsely—engaged to Jesse. Seiji had had seniority then. Just as now, Nicholas had seniority.

If Seiji had been born a mere month earlier, he would still have the upper hand in this arrangement. Sometimes, tradition was a tedious and hateful thing.

Nicholas opened the door for them. Seiji didn’t appreciate the way Nicholas watched him as he stepped into the office.

“It’s unlocked,” Nicholas said.

Seiji wasn’t paying much attention to his fiancé. His eyes had honed in on the marriage contract, still neat and perfectly in place, just as he’d left it. He’d still have to read through it all and make sure nothing was tampered with.

“If you want it locked, talk with Jane. She can get you a key. I assume you haven’t thought to ask for one yet?”

“What? No, I haven’t but—I mean that you can come in here instead of waiting at the door to glare at me for being a tiny bit late.”

“That’s a good topic to start the meeting with,” Seiji said, hand on the back of his seat.

“No.” Nicholas meandered around his office, touching everything in reach with curious fingers. “The only thing about punctuality you may put in there is that I’ll try my best to be on time.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“I’m not getting sued over a couple of minutes. I’ll try my best to be on time and you can wait at the door to glare at me if that’s what you’re into.”

“I’d honestly prefer not to wait at any doors for you. And will you sit down?” Seiji snapped, growing impatient with Nicholas’s continued exploration of his office. Hadn’t he ever seen books before? Or a floor globe?

“Why?”

“Pardon?”

“Why can’t I walk around? Are you one of those people that gets annoyed with other people moving? Because I’ve got some bad news for you, I’m not great at staying still.”

“I’ve noticed. But I’d like to sit and get to work.”

“Go for it. I’m not stopping you.”

Seiji waited another moment before taking his seat and collecting the contract to look over. He didn’t get very far before noticing that Nicholas was peering over at him.

“I’m kinda…clueless—”

Seiji snorted. That was an understatement.

“—about business through marriage stuff,” Nicholas finished pointedly. And rather generously. Nicholas Cox seemed clueless about most things.

“Yes. And?”

“And…like, you keep acting weird. I can’t tell if it’s a—,” he gestured to the contract, “thing or a _you_ thing.”

“I would have thought the lawyers or even Robert would have explained the finer points of this arrangement to you already.”

“I told you. I was a little busy having my mind blown to pay attention.”

“If you’re perplexed about my reluctance to enter your office without you, I worry for your understanding of basic manners.” Judging by Nicholas’s rolled eyes, this answer wasn’t satisfactory. Seiji sighed. “Yes, alright. In these dealings, favor is granted to the eldest between us. That’s you.” By a measly month. “And, because of your seniority, we meet in your office, which, out of common courtesy, I do not enter without you. And I wait for you to be seated before I sit. There are other small favors you are granted and you’re only lucky that you’re not the one who has to be aware of them or you’d no doubt be even more offensive than you are now.”

“You’re a real sweet-talker, aren’t you?”

Seiji ignored Nicholas, returning to his papers. He didn’t think Nicholas was one to pass comments about sweet-talking. Seiji had heard what Nicholas said to his friends—about Seiji’s family business two years ago and about his meager contribution to said company only yesterday. Neither of them was impressed by the other and Nicholas had been right on Friday. Why pretend that they were pleased to be here with each other?

The contract was in order, though Seiji would be carefully and thoroughly rereading it before submitting a final version of it to the lawyers to be looked over. His parents and Robert, mercifully, had had their hand in creating it already and would not be seeing it again. Not unless either Seiji or Nicholas shared it with them or else they got into a legal dispute that put the contract on public record. Seiji had always been thankful for that. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so demoralizing now that there was no mention of sexual behavior in the contract. But even so, his contract was between him and his fiancé and their lawyers.

Today’s meeting went much the same way as yesterday’s, but with a later lunch. It was well after three when Nicholas returned to his office and let Seiji in the door he’d been waiting by. Punctuality was not a priority to this man, no matter his empty promises about _trying his best_ to be on time.

“So, other than having a partner who skulks in doorways waiting for me to invite him in, what are the perks of being born first?” Nicholas asked, throwing himself into his deep burgundy chair and spinning it around a full rotation. Seiji refrained from criticizing the misuse of the chair, just as he refrained from reiterating that common sense and basic manners dictated not going into other people’s rooms without them or their express permission.

“Small things not worth mentioning, for the most part. However…there is _one_ thing I’ve been meaning to discuss with you and now is as good a time as any.”

“Yeah?”

“There’s the matter of which name we’ll go by. That is to say, when we marry, will you take my name or will we be Costes?” As Seiji said it, Nicholas made a face. A displeased face. “As you have seniority in this arrangement, tradition dictates that I take your name—your family name. Coste. Unless we come to an agreement stating otherwise. Which leads us to the question of what you would require to—,”

“I’ll take your name,” Nicholas said with a disinterested shrug, obviously ready for this long meeting to be over. Seiji could understand, but he was too efficient to want to rush things unduly. And it was a surprise for Nicholas to concede to this agreement; taking the Katayama name instead of the Coste one.

It had been a constant point of tension between him and Jesse for as long as they’d understood one would have to give up this part of his identity in order to further their families. Seiji had been, as the elder between them, given precedence in this matter. They were to take his name by right of tradition, unless he agreed to take on the Coste name instead. It had been another bargaining chip, and a weighty one. Jesse had never found anything worth Seiji bartering away his name. It was the one time _he_ had proposed a married life with no expectations of sex on Seiji’s part.

_I’ll give you full control over sex,_ if _you take my name._

It had been the closest Jesse had ever come to convincing Seiji. But it wasn’t worth it. A few tumbles on the bed would be well worth keeping this part of himself. And now, here was Nicholas, freely giving this most valuable point of power over him _to_ him, though Nicholas was older and had every right to push his family name on Seiji.

“Why would you do that?” he couldn’t help but ask. He felt something close to guilt, letting Nicholas give away his biggest advantage without even knowing it. He’d already given Seiji more than he had any right to expect.

Nicholas just shrugged again. “Why wouldn’t I? I don’t get to keep my real last name either way.”

“But why would you give up your family name too?”

“It means nothing to me. And, this way, you’re happy.” Seiji stared, rather rudely, at his fiancé. “Aren’t you?”

Was this a trick?

Slowly, Seiji nodded, “Yes.”

“Well, there you have it. I’m miserable either way. No point in making you miserable too.”

“Isn’t there? Generally, that’s how compromise works, you realize. To give me what I want when you get nothing in return puts you at a disadvantage by mere merit of putting me at an advantage.”

“You’ve got a fucked up way of looking at the world.” Nicholas looked at him long and hard and it seemed to Seiji there was an element of pity in his eyes.

“I’m a realist,” Seiji lashed, snarling at Nicholas and at his pity. He’d see. In a couple of years, Nicholas would see what a soft fool he’d been to give Seiji everything he wanted at no cost. That wasn’t how the real world worked, and it was Nicholas that should be pitied for not having figured that out yet.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Xand, love, this is for you. If you ever read it, I'm sure you'll remember why lmao <3

Nick was stoked when he woke up and realized he didn’t have to go to Coste Headquarters today. He and Katayama had finished their contract yesterday and passed it off to the lawyers. He was glad to be done with it. A quick signature on it the day of the wedding and then it’d be out of his life forever. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. But as long as he abided by its terms, he’d be fine.

It was his first day truly off since getting out of the hospital. No meetings with secret fathers or fiancés. And no work. He felt restless by afternoon and tried texting Bobby about that shopping trip. He was rewarded with an enthusiastic agreement.

“What are we going for?” Bobby asked, looping his arm through Nick’s the moment he arrived at the mall.

“I dunno. But I’m a businessman now so I should look the part.”

Bobby giggled. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but it’s just too funny to imagine you as a businessman.”

“Tell me about it,” Nick grinned. “But it’s the truth. Do you want to know something weird, though? I miss the shop. At least there I knew what I was doing and I was good at it. I was _doing_ something. I don’t know how the hell to run a business.”

“Are you…like, the CEO of Coste Motor now?”

Nick spluttered a laugh.

“Me? CEO? No way. I’d run it into the ground. No, Robert’s still CEO, but I’m technically his boss? We talked about it and I said that’s fine—I don’t want to be directly in charge of things.” Even if Nick was pretty sure that _was_ the eventual plan. “I’ve got final say on big changes and stuff since the company’s all mine but I don’t know what I’m doing.” Nick was sure he could get a headache if he thought about it too hard. “Robert says I’ll learn. I’ve got to take classes after the wedding and I’m starting at the company as Robert’s mini-me, best I can tell.”

“Oh, the wedding!” Bobby had obviously been dying for an in to this topic. Nick appreciated that he’d held off on it for so long. “I got an invitation last week, it was so beautiful! Dante and I have our outfits picked out but I wanted to run them by you to make sure they’ll be okay. I’ve never been to a million-dollar wedding before!”

Nick winced. “There’s no way it’s literally a million-dollar wedding, is there?”

Nick hadn’t been much involved with the wedding planning. There hadn’t been much time for planning in general and Nick got the idea that most of his wedding was the same as the original wedding that had been in the works for years. All he’d done was offer a sparse handful of names he’d like invited.

“I’ve been following the wedding for so long,” Bobby babbled on, not paying any heed to Nick’s question, though he likely knew the answer. Maybe it was for the best that he didn’t share it. “I can’t believe I actually get to go to it! It was such short notice, I admit that it wasn’t an easy task to pull together something to wear but, well, I think I did alright. And before you ask, I made sure Eugene has something appropriate to wear too.”

“I wasn’t going to ask.”

“You should have, you know he hates suits. What does your tux look like?”

“I…have no idea?”

“You haven’t had a fitting yet?” Bobby asked, aghast.

“Uh, no, I did. But I can’t tell you much more than it was, y’know, a suit. Or…a tux? I don’t know, Bobby, I was groggy from the pain meds.”

“Oh!” Bobby exclaimed, even louder than the last time. “How are you feeling? It’s been such an insane month, I can’t even keep track of all that’s going on with you! When Eugene told me you were in the hospital, I was so worried. I tried to visit right away, but I wasn’t allowed in and then I found out that it was because Robert was there—and that you’re his son…I still can’t believe any of it. I didn’t even believe you were actually alright until they let me in to see you. But I’m so glad you’re okay, Nick. We were so worried.”

“Thanks,” Nick said awkwardly. “I should have listened to you and gone to the doctor’s when my side started hurting.”

“Yes, you should have. And next time, you’ll listen. But I guess it worked out. With Robert and Seiji and all.”

“Has it?” Nick wondered. “I don’t know that _this_ is really it working out.” Robert had found out about him just in time to sub him in for Jesse in the marriage to Katayama. But, on the other hand, that hospital bill would have killed him without the Coste funds.

“Here,” Bobby tugged Nick into a shop he’d never been in before, “let’s try this one, I’m sure we can find you something sleek and professional to wear.”

Twenty minutes later, Bobby was calling in Dante for back up. Which was, in Nick’s opinion, unnecessary.

“Nick, you absolutely can _not_ buy that,” Bobby said, hanging up the phone to snatch a gray jacket with multi-colored patterns all over it out of Nick’s hand.

“I thought you were excited for my makeover?”

“I was. But I underestimated how hopeless you are. It’s a good thing your standard fashion sense is black on black on black or you’d be doomed.”

“But you won’t let me get any of the black stuff!”

“Because you keep picking out the worst articles of clothing in the store. Don’t,” he said, slapping Nick’s hand away from some sort of velvety thing that might have been a skirt but could also have been a shirt.

“Who knew you could be so mean,” Nick muttered, holding his hand to his chest and nursing the imaginary wound.

“It’s for your own good.”

“I know, that’s why I asked you for help. Hey, what about this belt?”

“No.”

“Fine, I’ll put it back.”

Nick let Bobby fill his arms with potential outfits. Dante arrived just in time to be loaded down with the clothes Bobby couldn’t fit in Nick’s arms. With Bobby occupied filling Dantes arms instead, Nick managed to sneak some stuff into his pile.

“Hang on,” Nick said as Bobby ushered him into a dressing room stall. “You don’t really expect me to try _all_ of this on, do you? We’ll be here all day!”

“Good thing we’ve got all day,” Bobby chirped, carefully hanging up clothes everywhere he could. “And remember to come out and show us everything.”

“But Bobby—,”

“No buts, Nicholas,” Bobby chided. “I take my makeovers very seriously.”

Nick muddled through the endless pairs of slacks and all the button-downs and collared shirts Bobby had picked out for him. The stack of clothes dwindled during the process.

“Do these slacks make my ass look flat?” Nick asked, stepping out of the dressing room for the fiftieth time and doing a spin for Bobby. Dante was reading some Italian book that looked like it had a squiggly green leaf on the cover but, Nick was pleased to note, he _did_ look up from it to offer his vote on this important matter.

“Yes.”

“They look good, Nick,” Bobby assured, swatting Dante. Then, sighing at Nick’s dubious expression, “Fine, alright, the fit isn’t the most flattering, they shorten your torso. But I love that shirt!”

“I’m not getting this shirt,” Nick said, picking at the salmon collar.

“Why not? You’ve tossed out almost all of the collared shirts!”

“Because they’re too preppy. I’m not dressing like a trust fund baby at a golf club just because I can. I’d rather die.”

“Nick,” Bobby warned.

 _Right._ Death jokes were currently off the table.

“I kept the black one,” he offered.

“I guess that’s true. Now get back in there and try on the next outfit!”

Nick did as instructed and got his ass back in the stall—and out of the ill-fitting slacks—to try on the next thing.

“What are you wearing?” Bobby asked when Nick stepped out again.

“No idea. Do you like it?”

“You snuck that in while I wasn’t looking, didn’t you?” Bobby very tactfully avoided the question. “It’s…an interesting choice, Nick. That color…and that fabric…and, wow, what a silhouette…”

“So I should get it?” Nick asked, hands finding the big pouched pocket of the jumper thing he was wearing. He felt like a kangaroo in it. Maybe these were pajamas? But this place didn’t sell pajamas…

“Nick, I’m sorry, but I have to be honest with you. That thing is awful and if you try to buy it, I will be forced to ask Dante to use whatever means necessary to take it away from you before you can.”

Nick laughed and disappeared back into the dressing room. He tossed the fuzzy, spotted onesie over the wall when he was out of it.

“Thank you!” Bobby called, sounding genuinely relieved. As if Nick had _actually_ wanted that thing.

His next outfit would go over much better. Black pants that had a zipper down both sides all the way to the knees and a cropped shirt with a hood longer than the hem.

This outfit did _not_ go down any better than the last.

“I hate shopping,” Nick decided when they finally finished up in that store—with no zipped pants or long-hooded shirts to show for it—and Bobby dragged them right into another.

“I blame you for this,” Dante told him.

“Not my fault you can’t say no to Bobby,” Nick shot back.

“But it is your fault you never learned how to dress yourself.”

“Bobby! Your mountain is being mean to me!”

Bobby spun around to tap both of them on the nose—standing on his toes to reach Dante’s.

“No more fighting, I forbid it,” he told them both, linking his arms through theirs and taking up the entire aisle. “I _will_ cry if you can’t get along.”

“We get along,” Dante was quick to say. Nick laughed and Bobby smiled sweetly. Did Dante actually think Bobby didn’t know the two of them got on well? Just so long as Nick didn’t try to nab food from him, anyway. But the threat of Bobby crying was too terrible an idea to Dante to risk, Nick supposed.

They ended up going through every clothes shop in the mall and spending hundreds of dollars on new ones. Every swipe of the credit card was a sick sort of pleasure, both exciting and disturbing. Nick still couldn’t shake the nervous pit in his stomach watching as the items got rung up and the price grew. But, when it was all totaled, he was able to pay it in full. Every time.

Nick did manage to sneak in some new ripped jeans and a variety of black shirts to go with them. Bobby didn’t order Dante to wrestle them away from him so, all in all, it was a successful, if tiring, day.

“I can’t wait for your wedding!” Bobby said as they walked through the parking garage, ready to be done with the shopping. Thank fuck.

“I’ve got rehearsals the rest of the week. And then on Saturday…I guess I’m getting married.”

There must have been something in his voice or on his face at that because Bobby slowed to a stop and looked him over hard, a worried little frown taking over his formerly glowing face.

“Are you alright, Nicky?”

“I’m fine.”

Bobby squeezed his arm. “I’m sorry, I got so excited about the glamor and about Seiji…but I forget it must suck to marry someone you just met. If you want to talk about it…?”

“Trust me, you’ll have to listen to me complain about Seiji Katayama for the rest of my life. But right now, I don’t want to think about it. Not until I’m at the rehearsal tomorrow and have to.”

Bobby nodded. “You’ll be okay, Nicky. I know you will. And maybe you’ll end up liking him after all.”

“Yeah, I’ll fall in love with Mr. Ice Prince himself and you’ll let me wear that romper I wanted and Eugene will get a car that actually works and Dante will share his bacon with all of us.”

“Don’t bring my bacon into this,” Dante rumbled.

“Nick, give him a chance,” Bobby urged. “Who knows? If you’re not set on hating him for an interaction you had _two years_ ago, you might be surprised.”


	10. Chapter 10

Seiji didn’t typically feel nervous. And it was incredibly irksome that such an emotion might apply to him now, on the day of his wedding. He was sure his mother would insist that butterflies were normal on such a momentous day of your life. It was, after all, the beginning of his new life as a married man with Nicholas Cox. Nicholas…soon to be Katayama.

He felt uneasy about it in a way he’d never felt uneasy about marrying Jesse. Perhaps, at this moment in an alternate life, he _would_ have been equally uneasy with Jesse waiting at the end of the aisle for him. He’d never know now. But Seiji couldn’t stop playing over in his mind every way this wedding could go wrong. Every detail Nicholas might mess up. Every detail he’d messed up repeatedly during rehearsals.

“Are you ready?” Mother asked in a whisper, her hand resting on his shoulder and sliding down to hook in his arm. “Don’t be nervous, it’s your special day.”

A special day he’d never wanted. Never had the chance to want, only the chance to dread and anticipate and plan for. And here it all was. A couple of hours and he’d have officially paid his dues to his family and their company and could stop thinking about it. All that was left after this was living with it.

“Smile, Seiji, you’ll be great,” Father assured him. “We’re so proud of you,” he continued, surprising Seiji with the warmth and genuine emotion the sentiment was delivered with. “You’ve taken this all in stride. What a capable young man your mother and I raised. I know you can handle anything; the future of Katayama Energy is in good hands.”

Seiji wasn’t used to proving his parents proud but Mother smiled and squeezed his arm. He nodded smartly in return and redoubled his resolve. He could do this. There wasn’t a choice about doing it. But he could choose to do it well. For his parents.

When the music struck up, signaling his cue, Seiji started his walk down the aisle with his mother on his arm and his father by his side. Jesse had wanted flowers but Seiji didn’t. He walked empty-handed with his back straight and his head high and the smile he’d practiced set on his face. It wasn’t huge by any means; Seiji had found that he looked unsettling when he tried for a wide smile. It never looked right, always came off forced and irritated. But this soft curve to his lips would have to suffice.

The pace was slow and steady, stretching this comparatively short journey into one that felt impossibly long. Seiji had never expected to be here. In his planning with Jesse, he’d been the one waiting at the altar for his groom. He’d been favored then. It made sense to be symbolically given Jesse when it was his name they were taking. He’d suggested to Nicholas that they follow the same setup, as Seiji’s name was still the one being taken. But Nicholas had scoffed. _And be given away by who?_ he’d asked. _No, you’ve got parents, it makes more sense if they give you away instead._ Seiji hadn’t pushed it, hadn’t wanted Nicholas to change his mind about the names. He’d noticed later when going over the guest list that Nicholas’s meager additions to it had not included anyone by the name of _Cox_.

Nicholas watched Seiji’s progress toward him, managing to keep a pleasant expression on. It was sad that Seiji was relieved at his soon-to-be husband’s success thus far in the proceedings. He’d had a hard time even standing still and waiting for Seiji to reach him during the first several runs through rehearsal. To make it this far without Nicholas fowling up, pathetically, counted as a triumph.

It was going fine. It would continue to go fine. They’d get through this.

But then Nicholas’s face shifted. Seiji registered the sudden and complete change of expression before absorbing what it was. A sick feeling like panic seized him briefly—was Nicholas about to sneeze? Was he pulling a face? Seiji had made it clear that if he tried that during the actual ceremony, there would be consequences and—but no.

Nicholas wasn’t sneezing.

He wasn’t sticking out his tongue.

Wasn’t mouthing insults.

Nicholas was smiling. A huge, face-splitting smile that was, in a word, dazzling. Seiji had never seen that expression on Nicholas. He hadn’t known Nicholas long enough to have seen him smile like that. He thought he remembered a pleasant smile years ago, and he’d seen plenty of Nicholas’s careless and joking grins since they’d officially met just over a week ago. But this was something else. It was real and joyous. And it was set on Seiji. He was close enough to meet Nicholas’s eyes. The man actually had the audacity to wink at him as his mother relinquished his arm and placed his hand in Nicholas’s. He received a kiss on his cheek from her and a squeeze on his shoulder from his father before they withdrew.

Nicholas’s smile lingered as he and Seiji faced each other in front of the crowd. The vows were exchanged without any disastrous stumbles or exaggerated rolls of the eyes. Seiji didn’t hear a single word of them. Not what Nicholas said. Not what he said in return. But he watched Nicholas’s mouth as he spoke and heard the smooth way in which he delivered his forced promises and acclaims to Seiji. And he knew his vows were said flawlessly in turn. He’d had years to practice them. And, as no gasps erupted from the rows of guests, he was confident that he’d even said _Nicholas_ in place of _Jesse._

Seiji picked out the _I do’s_ from the sermon, felt the cool metal of a golden band slip onto his finger. Felt the calluses on Nicholas’s hand as Seiji secured the match onto his ring finger. And then…and then it was time for them to kiss. As his heart kicked up a treacherous beat, Seiji realized that some of his nerves could be blamed on this moment. The kiss was the part of the wedding they had not practiced. In hindsight, that might have been a terrible flaw in the design.

Seiji had been promised since he was five. He’d grown up side by side with the boy he had believed he would be married to. But he’d never kissed him. Never kissed anyone. And it occurred to him now that he had no idea how to. How were you meant to move? Were you supposed to do anything with your hands? How could he make this kiss look smooth and romantic and everything it needed to be? He should have practiced. He wished he’d ever had guidelines for this sort of thing. Why had he never paused to consider how—

Nicholas’s hand was on his cheek, his arm slipping around Seiji’s waist, pulling him forward lightly. His kiss was just as light, just as undemanding as the gentle tug had been. It was just long enough for Seiji to feel Nicholas’s warmth pressed against his lips, just long enough to give the guests what they expected and the cameramen to get something to work with. When Nicholas’s lips detached from his just an inch and Seiji’s brain caught up with the rest of his body, he noticed that his hands had grappled into the silk lapels of Nicholas’s deep red jacket. He let go and smoothed the fabric back down, wincing inwardly at the mistake.

A soft exhale of air brushed against his temple and he looked up from the jacket to find Nicholas’s smile. This smile bridged the difference between his joking smirks and that bright, joyous thing he’d shown earlier.

* * *

“So, I think that went well,” Nicholas said, sauntering up to Seiji.

“It could have gone worse,” Seiji admitted. “But it’s not over yet. Try not to make a fool of us.”

“As you wish, Mr. Katayama.”

“Technically,” Seiji said, temper stoking at the name he knew Nicholas used as a rebuke, “that title applies to you now too.”

“You know what, Katayama, you’re right. There’s no reason to be so formal now that we’re married, is there?”

Nicholas bounded off again before Seiji could argue that dropping the _Mister_ didn’t change anything. Except for, as Nicholas had said, making it more casual. Which was really the last thing Seiji wanted from the anonymous scruff. His _husband_.

Finally, after all these years, Seiji was married. They’d said their vows and exchanged the rings and shared a kiss. They’d thanked all their guests and accepted congratulations and posed for pictures of an outrageous amount. They’d signed their finalized marriage contract. Everything was squared away, legally speaking. The ceremony was over and done with. But Seiji’s nerves still remained.

Seiji frowned into the throng of people through which Nicholas had disappeared. He hoped Nicholas could behave himself for the remainder of the wedding party.

_No, he can’t be trusted unsupervised,_ Seiji decided, meaning to go after his husband. But he was apprehended by more well-wishers before he had the chance.


	11. Chapter 11

Nick shed his jacket and abandoned it on one of the tall chairs with weirdly intricate patterns twisted out of the wire that made up the backing. These chairs looked more like a _Jesse_ detail than anything Katayama would have picked out. He was sure Katayama would scold him for ditching his jacket on one, no matter who’d picked the damn things out, but he’d just escaped his husband—and several people who didn’t know him offering their congratulations for his happy marriage or whatever—and figured he had some time before the demon caught up with him.

For his part, Nick was ready for the party to end. He could count the people he knew on his fingers and didn’t like the way everyone here acted as if _they_ knew _him._ He felt watched and scrutinized and judged. And he felt all those things from Katayama like an acute pinprick between his shoulder blades, a knot of nerves reminding him that this was all a show and it needed to go well if they wanted things to go smoothly. _Things_ being business. And gossip. Nick wasn’t much for gossip columns and the like but he wasn’t so dense that he didn’t know there were rumors and opinions on him out the wazoo already.

“Hey, there’s the happy groom,” a wonderfully familiar voice called, plucking Nick from the crowd.

“I just managed to ditch the grumpy groom,” Nick grinned, catching Eugene in a hug. If they’d had groomsmen for the wedding, Nick would have asked Eugene to be his best man.

“Hard to believe I was driving your half-dead ass to the hospital only two weeks ago. Look at you now, big man with a bigger wallet. And a gorgeous husband.”

“God, Gene, you know he’s not what I want.” If Nick had ever humored the idea of a spouse, the last sort of person he’d have imagined himself with was an emotionally detached and superior dick like Seiji Katayama.

“Hey now, you’ll live.” Eugene scruffed up Nick’s hair—another point for Katayama to complain about later. Nick shoved Eugene for big brothering him but Eugene wasn’t easy to shove around and all Nick’s efforts got him was the tiniest of gives.

“Anyway, thanks for the laugh during the death march, I needed it.”

“I could tell.” Eugene’s smile was conspiratorial. “I could see the panic in your eyes.”

Nick had to give it to Eugene. He _had_ been panicking. Without Eugene, he might have puked. Thanks to his friend catching his eye and pretending to stick his foot in the aisle, it had been a laugh—not bile—Nick had swallowed down when looking back to Katayama, imagining him tripping and sprawling across on the ground. He hadn’t laughed, though. He’d recognized his own panic hidden deep in Katayama’s dark eyes and had felt like he knew him for the first time. It was only for a moment. Only because of the split-second connection of mutual misery and panic. Katayama didn’t have a Eugene to make him smile despite it all, all he had was a thin curve of lips that was more determination than anything and two parents at his side that had basically sold him off as a kid, finally seeing the deed done in passing him off to Nick.

Nick had been given a smile when he needed it and he’d tried to give it to Katayama too, holding that smile in place even after images of his groom face-planting at his feet had cleared out of his mind. He wasn’t stupid enough to think Katayama had really wanted his smile but he hadn’t been scolded for it, either. And Katayama _was_ the sort of buzzkill that would be upset over an unscripted grin and a wink. So Nick figured it had all worked out well enough.

“That smile was sorely needed,” Nick repeated. “Thanks. And thanks, also, for driving my half-dead ass to the hospital. I owe you one for that.”

“No kidding. I thought you’d actually worked yourself to death, bud. Not a fun time.” And Nick could tell that he meant it. His smile was easy now but the first few times Nick had seen him after passing out en route to the hospital, Eugene had treated Nick like he expected him to drop dead at any moment.

“How about I fix your car?”

“What, the door?”

“Door _s_. I know at least two of them are broken. You can get me grub and help with the grunt work. Since I’ve already got the hospital bill covered and all, and I owe you for the trauma.”

“Nick—,”

“Come on, I doubt these Coste people are going to let me fix up cars, they’ve got plebs for that. Let me play in the grease.”

Eugene thought about it, then nodded slowly.

“If you insist. Just don’t wear your pretty suit when you come to play.”

“It’s a tux,” Nick said snobbishly. “I think.”

“It’s not a tuxedo.” Jesse Coste came into focus in Nick’s peripheral vision as his snobby voice reached Nick’s ears. “Smoking jackets aren’t the same as tuxedos. Speaking of, where _is_ yours?”

“It’s—,” Nick gestured vaguely. Jesse’s face, already twisted in a sneer, got even more judgmental.

“Do you know how expensive that jacket was? You had better go find it before it wrinkles. And,” a flick of the eyes down at his watch, “it will be time to cut the cake soon. Better go find your husband too.”

“Oh, right.” Nick wasn’t sure why Jesse was being helpful but he was right. About the cake, at least.

“I hope your cake tastes good,” Eugene said.

“Yeah, me too,” Nick agreed, taking off to find Katayama. He also kept an eye out for Bobby. It really shouldn’t have been so hard to spot him milling around the sprawling grounds of the lodge. He’d be by Dante and Dante was tall enough to spot basically anywhere. But there’d be time to find Bobby later.

Only because he _did_ , by chance, run into the chair he’d ditched his coat on, Nick scooped it back up on the way to Katayama, even though he was tempted to leave it there to wrinkle out of spite.

“Put that back on,” Katayama hissed when he was in scolding range. “You look ridiculous without it. How long have you been wandering around like that? I can’t trust you alone for even ten minutes—,” Katayama cut off with a put-upon huff. “Just put it on, won’t you?”

Nick did. And then was carted off to the tent the cake was in. It was massive. The cake. The tent was too, but you expected event tents to be massive. The cake, though, was bigger than any cake Nick had ever seen, way bigger than a cake had any business being. It was chocolate, covered in an artfully thin layer of buttercream frosting that let the cake peek through and reminded Nick of aspen trees, adorned with strawberries and roses. It looked pretty. But there was no telling if it would taste good.

“Did you choose this?” Nick whispered to Katayama as the guests started to accumulate under the high-soaring white canopy.

“Does it matter?”

“I just thought it looked more like you, that’s all. Wasn’t trying to start a fight.”

“I chose the cake,” Katayama confirmed after a long pause. Nick was surprised he’d answered at all. “I meant to strike the strawberries from the order.”

“I don’t mind,” Nick shrugged. But he got the feeling it wasn’t for Nick’s sake that Katayama had meant to remove the garnishes that must have been chosen by Jesse’s hand. “Hey, I think we’re supposed to be cutting the cake, not scooping the ice cream,” Nick said lightly. Katayama snapped his attention back over from the fancy-looking vanilla bean ice cream on the dessert table.

“Of course,” he said curtly, reaching for the knife.

Conveniently, Nick was able to overlap his left hand over Katayama’s right without having to do that sideways half-hug thing he’d seen couples do in movies. Together, they wielded the blade into the elegant cake. There was an eruption of cheers when they carved out their piece and managed to get it onto a plate.

“Say _ahh,”_ Nick cooed, taking up a forkful of the cake and raising it to Katayama’s mouth. It was a disapproving, unyielding line and his eyebrows took on a dangerous tilt over his eyes. But there was a chorus of _aaaww_ s from the gathered crowd. So Katayama reluctantly opened up and Nick deposited the bite into his mouth. Then he took another for himself and immediately scanned the crowd for Eugene. When he found him—standing next to Jesse, which was unfortunate for Eugene—Nick shot him a tiny thumbs up. The cake was delicious.

Too bad this piece wasn’t for eating.

While Katayama was distracted with the bite Nick had fed him, he made as if to offer another one, raising the plate upward. But at the last minute, he tipped the plate up. Katayama’s eyes widened the instant before Nick smooshed the cake into his face. He looked ridiculous. And ridiculously pissed off. But the cake on his face just made the anger funny too.

“What do you—!” Katayama seethed, but stopped himself from going off in front of their guests, who had joined Nick in laughing.

“The cake’s great!” Nick assured them all, cutting a new piece for himself before stepping off and letting the professional cake cutter take over. “Come try a piece.”

“That was not part of the plan,” Katayama hissed. An attendant scurried over with a napkin, which Katayama used to furiously wipe at his face with.

“But it was funny,” Nick said, scooping a finger down Katayama’s cheek and licking the buttercream off of it. “And you look so sweet.”

* * *

Katayama had not forgiven Nick for his stunt with the cake.

“Try not to break anything,” Katayama said coolly as he let Nick inside his penthouse apartment.

They’d agreed to stay here until they found a new place together. Nick’s tiny apartment was all but packed up and his stuff basically fit in the duffle slung over one shoulder. He let out a low, impressed whistle as he looked around the place. Sleek and elegant, just like the man who maintained it.

“Nice place,” Nick muttered, letting the door shut behind him and stepping into the living room.

“Shoes,” Katayama warned.

“I was going to take them off! That doesn’t count, you didn’t give me time before assuming I needed a warning.” Nick had needed the warning. He ducked to pull off his shoes before following Katayama into the bedroom.

“I’ve cleared a drawer and half of the closet for your use, and the left side of the counter in the bathroom is yours. The layout of the apartment is fairly intuitive, I trust you’ll be able to find your way around. I need to shower to get all the crusted buttercream out of my hair, but in the meantime, feel free to unpack and…make yourself at home,” he finished dubiously.

“Right. Cool.”

It didn’t take long at all to unpack. It took much longer to explore; the apartment was huge. It was like an entire house set atop this building and passed off as an apartment.

“Nicholas?”

Nick let the faint summons call him back to the bedroom. Katayama’s bedroom. Nick’s bedroom. _Their_ bedroom, now. Nick felt weird standing in it, couldn’t connect this room to himself. It felt like Katayama with the dark blue comforter and meticulously made bed and pristine white carpet and no sign of clutter. Maybe it wouldn’t feel so much like he was invading a space that didn’t belong to him when they bought a house together as the contract dictated.

“Need me?” Nick asked. Katayama was already dressed for bed, wearing horribly stiff and uncomfortable looking pajamas. Who wanted to wear a suit to bed? Katayama, apparently.

“Unfortunately. Here, your keys.” Katayama held out his hand and Nick mimicked him.

A key dropped into Nick’s open palm. Katayama’s disgusted face could have been at the small brush of his fingers against Nick’s hand during the exchange or over the act of having to give Nick a key at all. “Go wash up, you’re not coming to bed until you do. You smell like the reception.”

Nick didn’t have any reason to object to a shower but he hesitated at the door with his small collection of toiletries.

“Yes?” Katayama asked impatiently.

“Should I…set up in here?”

“What are you—yes, Nicholas, I already said. The left sink and accompanying drawers are yours.”

“It’s just—there’s like ten other bathrooms and—,”

“Yes, and they’re all for company, I won’t have your,” Katayama wrinkled his nose as his eyes fell on Nick’s armload of stuff, “two-in-one shampoo cluttering them up.”

“Gotcha.”

Nick was impressed that there was still hot water left for him. His apartment ran out of hot water before he’d even finished showering. But Katayama’s was the best money could buy and, apparently, money could buy endless supplies of hot water.

When Nick was finished, he found Katayama sitting under the covers, the lights in the room all off, save for the reading lamp on Katayama’s side of the bed. The right side. As per the contract. Nick could get sued if he ever tried to sleep on Katayama’s side.

_What a life I’m living,_ Nick thought, staring at the almost perfect stranger he’d married today.

“Do you plan to just stand there or—where are your pajamas?” Katayama asked, looking up from his book to glare at Nick over the top of thin wire-framed reading glasses.

“I don’t believe in pajamas.”

“Don’t believe in—? Nicholas, pajamas aren’t something you can choose whether or not to believe in. Pajamas just _are._ You can’t wear nothing but underwear to bed.”

“You’re lucky I decided to wear an undershirt,” Nick grumbled. “And at least I don’t look like I belong in a nursing home.”

“No, because looking like you’ve stepped off the wrappings of a bundle of cheap boxer shorts is so much better.”

“Hey, those guys look pretty good, thanks for the compliment, old man.”

“Very unfortunately, you’re the old man in this relationship.”

Nick noticed that his mouth had found its way into something of a grin during the back and forth with Katayama but it dropped as he looked again at the neatly tucked blankets over his side of the bed.

“Look, I know we’re married and all but we don’t actually have to—I mean, there’s about a hundred guest rooms in this place and I’m sure when we get a house it’s not like there’ll only be the one room, you know? The one bed. I don’t have to…”

“Try not to get squeamish, I don’t have the patience for it. Our marriage may not be a traditional one—or, perhaps, it is too steeped in tradition to be a normal one—but I won’t have my husband sleeping in any bed but my own.”

Big words from someone who’d wanted to write lovers and hookups into their marriage arrangements. But Nick nodded and crept under the covers, feeling like a sneak and a fraud as he slipped between impossibly soft sheets. He could feel Katayama’s warmth, his weight. He could hear the sound of Katayama’s breathing and the turn of a page in his book. It was too quiet here, no noise of drunken neighbors or bustling, busy, angry streets outside their window. This apartment was so sealed against the rest of the world that all there was to see and hear and feel was Katayama.

Nick couldn’t stop his eyes from sliding to Katayama, just to make sure this surreal reality was a real one. It must have been. Nick wouldn’t have hallucinated someone who wore their hair styled even to bed, even if the style clearly wasn’t held in place with gel after his shower.

“As I’m sure you’ll recall,” Katayama said tritely into his book, “you won’t be getting anything from me tonight. Or ever, for that matter. So stop your staring.”

“Gross, like I want anything from you,” Nick muttered grumpily, thrashing his way under the blankets and turning over to land with a _thwump_ on his pillow facing away from Katayama.

“What a convenient coincidence.”

“Sure is. I’m too wiped for that anyway. Who knew weddings were so exhausting?”

Katayama made a sound like a laugh, a derisive little noise in the back of his throat that Nick had learned to take as _you are incredibly stupid, if you’d just used your tiny pea-brain, that would have been obvious to you._ It was a sound he’d heard a lot lately.

Despite the exhausting day and his very real fatigue, Nick couldn’t get to sleep. It was Katayama’s fault. Nick wasn’t about to turn over and face the guy, but he was usually a toss-and-turn sort of sleeper so staying in this one position felt claustrophobic and made sleep impossible.

Nick let his mind drift, trying to let it relax into dreams, so he wasn’t sure how long it was before Katayama slipped neatly out of bed. Curiously, Nick watched his shadow on the wall and then his dimly illuminated profile when he crossed into Nick’s line of vision. He left the bedroom and Nick wondered if he was sneaking off to sleep in a guest room. Honestly, Nick wouldn’t put it past him to sneak out after he thought Nick was asleep and set an early alarm to crawl back into bed in the morning before Nick woke up to a cold bed.

But Katayama returned soon after with a glass of water, ice clinking softly in it. Nick saw now that his glasses were gone from his face. He must be ready to try for sleep himself. Nick’s eyes caught on another detail he’d missed before and he let a laugh out. It wasn’t as derisive as Katayama’s, but it was obviously directed at him.

Katayama froze abruptly, his shoulders jumping up slightly and his water almost sloshing out of the glass. Then he cut a cold look Nick’s way and continued. Soon, his glass was clunking onto the nightstand and Katayama was climbing back into bed.

“I thought you were asleep.”

“Not quite. And who wears socks to bed?”

“What?”

Nick rolled over to face Katayama but didn’t lift his head off his pillow to talk to him.

“I can’t believe I’m married to a dork whose little feetsies get so cold they need sockies. So not cool.”

“You’re not one to make fun of anyone for their choice of sleepwear. And there’s nothing wrong with wearing socks to bed.”

“Do you have special jammy socks? Like, you’ve got your everyday socks and then you come home and get ready for bed and get a fresh pair for sleep?”

“Of course; wearing the same pair for twenty-four hours would be unsanitary.”

“Okay, okay,” Nick said, grinning, “and do your sleepy time socks live with your normal socks or your pajamas?”

“They—why is this so funny to you?” Katayama demanded. “Stop laughing.”

Nick didn’t. He laughed about Katayama’s socked feet until he fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> seiji deserves to be made fun of for wearing socks to bed, this is a hill i climbed ages ago and i intend to die on it


	12. Chapter 12

Seiji woke up with an arm tossed carelessly across him. Warmth pressed against his back and surprisingly soft hair tickled at his neck. Seiji had never woken up next to anyone before. He was surprised at how _here_ Nicholas seemed this morning. The weight of his body dipping the bed and the heat of his presence under the blankets and the sound of his soft breathing—the feel of it, too, and the feel of all of him pressing into and pulling at Seiji—it was all proof that Nicholas was here. So close and present and in Seiji’s bed. In his life. It was such a mundane part of marriage, waking up in bed with your spouse. And yet, it wasn’t one Seiji had ever considered before.

Distastefully, Seiji removed the arm draped over his middle and got out of bed, casting one last disapproving look down at his husband’s sleeping form before starting his morning routine.

Nicholas was still tangled in the bedsheets, dead asleep by the time Seiji was fully dressed. A glance at his watch confirmed what Seiji already knew.

“Nicholas,” he called, “get up. We’ve got brunch with Robert to further discuss your place at Coste Motor, as well as _our_ new places and responsibilities in one another’s business dealings. We’re a joint force now, truly having married our companies together. Which means that, as my responsibilities at Katayama Energy on my way to taking over grow, your involvement and input in our business dealings will also grow, and vice versa.”

Nicholas groaned and grumbled and flopped around. Finally, he sat up and blinked groggily at Seiji.

“Man,” he said after a long time, presumably taken to absorb everything Seiji had just said. “Robert is brutal, wanting to meet the day after our wedding—we could have been going at it all night for all he knows. Don’t we get a honeymoon?”

“Of course we get a honeymoon, our flights are booked for tomorrow. Don’t you pay attention to anything? But it’s best to get this out of the way now so we all understand how things are expected to work when we return from Paris.”

“We’re going to Paris?”

“Yes.”

“Jesse’s choice or yours?”

“Mine,” Seiji said briskly. He liked France. But it hadn’t been hard to get Jesse to agree to Paris. “I told you, yes? Last Tuesday, I believe it was. I offered to have the tickets refunded for our honeymoon but you waved away my concerns.” Thinking back on it now, it was entirely possible that Nicholas had waved away Seiji’s offer before even hearing _where_ they were honeymooning. It had been late evening by then.

“Cool. Paris. I’ve never even been out of state and now…well, cool.”

“Yes, cool. Now get up. I don’t care if you refuse to turn up anywhere on time—,”

“Bullshit, you’ve thrown at least ten bitch fits about my lateness just since I met you.”

“—but I won’t have you making me late too. Hurry.”

Nicholas grumbled more but he did get out of bed. Seiji left him to get ready.

“You’re not wearing that,” Seiji said twenty minutes later when Nicholas meandered into the living room.

“Why not?” Nicholas asked, looking down at himself as if he was unsure what he’d put on or why Seiji would take issue with it.

“We’re going to the country club, you can’t wear ripped jeans there. Actually, you can’t wear them anywhere.”

“Show me where in the contract it says that.”

“I’ll let you keep your terrible hair—,”

“What’s wrong with my hair?”

“It’s stupid.”

“I’d be offended,” Nicholas said, sweeping a hand through the flopping mess of hair on the top of his head. “But you obviously don’t know shit about good hair.”

Seiji frowned, hand twitching in an attempt to check his own hair. But he wouldn’t give Nicholas the satisfaction.

“Take off those pants.”

“I thought we agreed on no sex?” Nicholas’s expression was aggravatingly amused. He was having a good time with this.

“The contract left room for bargains that are not legally binding. I never want to see those pants—or any other such ripped monstrosities—on you again.”

“I like them.”

“They’re not professional.”

“I—,”

“No, there’s not an argument here. You are the owner of _the_ biggest motor company in the nation. You can’t dress like a middle schooler who’s going through a phase. Go change.”

“But—,”

“Whatever you were before now, you can’t be anymore. You need to be something better, do you understand me, Mr. Katayama?” Seiji delivered the name pointedly and he saw it cut efficiently between Nicholas’s ribs. He winced. Seiji was gratified as Nicholas slunk off to change.

Nicholas was starting to see how this worked, starting to understand why any advantage you gave away was a direct disadvantage to you. It pleased Seiji to have been able to turn Nicholas’s own reprimand against him.

Nicholas wore slacks to brunch. He also wore a black t-shirt with strange patterning on it but Seiji supposed it would have to do for now. Turning Nicholas into someone worthy of being called _Katayama_ would be a long and labored task. Slacks would do for now, but he planned on briefing Nicholas on appropriate dress for work when they returned from Paris.

Brunch with Robert was pleasant and time-efficient. Seiji appreciated that about Robert, he, unlike his son— _Jesse_ , unlike Jesse—always got to the point right away, no playing around with his food first. With a plan in place for when they got back to the states, Seiji and Nicholas returned to his apartment. Once there, Seiji took the liberty of confiscating every pair of ripped jeans he could find.

“Are you packed?” Seiji asked, his voice carrying from the bedroom and to wherever Nicholas was currently banging around. The kitchen, perhaps? Never mind that they’d just eaten.

“I just _un_ packed,” came the reply.

Seiji looked back down at the drawer he’d just half-emptied by removing the offensive pants from it. He didn’t think of himself as a snoop, but Seiji’s curiosity took his eyes to the closet, where only a rather sparse collection of items were hung on Nicholas’s side.

He hadn’t come with much, had he?

“Well,” Seiji said, rolling the drawer shut and stashing the wretched pants away on the top shelf of his side of the closet, behind the extra bedding. “You should pack tonight. We’ve got an early morning tomorrow.”

“To Paris.”

“Yes. To Paris. We can go shopping while we’re there, they’ve got some lovely boutiques.”

“Shopping?” Nicholas’s voice increased in volume as he came to join Seiji in the bedroom. “Why? I just went shopping.”

“Did you?” Seiji wondered in horror if Nicholas had survived on three outfits total before his latest shopping spree.

“You’re not a shopaholic, are you? I can’t have a best friend _and_ a husband who are constantly—oh, but maybe you’d like Bobby, then.”

“What’s that expression for?”

“Sorry, I just have a hard time imagining you liking anyone. But if you can be won over, Bobby’s the guy to do it. He’s great. And he likes shopping too.”

“I didn’t say I like shopping. I said you clearly need to go shopping.”

“At boutiques. In Paris.”

“Yes. Why do you keep saying it like that?”

“Saying what like what?”

“It’s as though you think you’re making fun of me, the way you keep saying _Paris._ Only, you’ll have to let me in on the joke if you expect me to understand it.”

“It’s just so 'trust fund baby,'” Nicholas shrugged. Then there it was again. That little smirk. _“Paris.”_

Seiji still didn’t understand why it amused Nicholas so much that they were going to Paris but he gave up on trying to understand. The Coste boys were full of jokes he didn’t understand.

Seiji had already packed for Paris but he went through his list again and made sure everything was in order in preparation for the trip, from the proper amount of socks being packed to the work he was leaving behind for two weeks to go on his honeymoon. Nicholas spent the day roaming around Seiji’s rooms like a restless dog. At least he didn’t shed as much as one. Though, Seiji _had_ noticed the hair he’d left in the shower drain…

“You’re not imprisoned here,” Seiji snapped after hours of enduring Nicholas’s restless energy.

“Bobby’s busy and Dante and I don’t really hang out unless Bobby’s there and Eugene won’t respond.”

“Surely, you’ve got more than two and a half friends.”

“You’re one to talk. Surely, you’ve got none.”

“If you won’t leave me in peace, come over here and look at listings with me.”

“Houses?” Nicholas said, actually doing as asked and coming over, pulling up a seat next to Seiji at the dining room table.

“Obviously. Look through the tabs I have open and tell me if any look agreeable. We can make visits after the honeymoon.”

Nicholas looked over all the selections Seiji had narrowed down his hunt to; Nicholas had offered no input on what sort of requirements he had for their house so Seiji had gone ahead and taken the search upon himself. But soon Nicholas’s looking turned to the clicking of the mousepad and clacking of the keyboard.

Annoyed, Seiji reached for the computer. He’d asked Nicholas already if he wanted to be involved in the house hunting and Nicholas had said he had no interest in it. It was rude and irritating for him to change his mind now and ignore all of Seiji’s propositions. But Seiji didn’t tug the computer from Nicholas’s grasp.

A strange look had taken over Nicholas’s features. Something was there. A wonder and a longing that mingled together and appeared to Seiji as an ache. Seiji peeked at the screen but couldn’t understand what had prompted that expression. Nicholas had simply found another house. A two-story thing with dark wood paneling and high-reaching ceilings. One shot showcased a view of snow-peaked mountains out of massive windows. It wasn’t anything special. And Nicholas closed out of the tab before sliding the computer back to Seiji.

“I don’t like the modern-looking one. It’s ugly as balls.”

“Noted,” Seiji said, startled as Nicholas stood from the table with a screech of his chair against Seiji’s hardwood floor.

“I think I’ll leave you in peace after all. Go for a walk.”

“Alright.”

As the door slammed on Nicholas, Seiji returned his attention to the screen. Something—more curiosity, perhaps—prompted him to navigate to the closed tab via the browser history and bookmark it.

Deciding to turn in early tonight to prepare for the long journey tomorrow, Seiji shut down his computer. But when it came time to get in bed, Seiji couldn’t keep from remembering the arm Nicholas had flung across him at some point last night. He didn’t want a repeat incident.

Seiji returned to his closet and pulled down the bin of bedding he’d hidden Nicholas’s pants—could they even be called pants when they were more rips than fabric?—behind. And there, at the bottom, was what he’d been looking for. A ridiculous gag gift he’d received at a white elephant office party years ago. A massive body pillow swathed in a hideous bright blue pillowcase adorned with little rubber duckies, bright yellow and offensively cheerful. It didn’t match his aesthetics but it would have to do.

Seiji tucked the pillow underneath the blankets, creating a buffer between his side of the bed and Nicholas’s. Then he climbed in and turned off the lights, trusting Nicholas would find his way to the other side of the pillow when he returned from his walk.


	13. Chapter 13

Nick was tired when they arrived in Paris. He’d never believed people who complained about jet lag before. Boohoo, big fucking deal, you sat on your ass all day while someone else drove—flew—you where you needed to go. But when they touched down and tracked down their bags, Nick felt wiped, despite the hours he’d spent doing nothing.

“Man, I can’t wait to get to the hotel,” Nick said as they climbed into their waiting car. The driver smirked; Nick saw it in the rear-view mirror. And then he couldn’t decide if he thought that was funny or mortifying because _of course_ this dude knew who they were and that they were on their honeymoon. And _of course_ he’d assume Nick wanted to get to their room as fast as possible for something very different than resting.

Katayama, it seemed, also had different ideas from resting when they got to their hotel.

“Let me see what sorry excuse for clothes you brought with you,” he demanded.

“Why? And, you know what, I’ve been meaning to file a complaint with our landlord because it seems that somebody broke into the apartment yesterday and stole all my pants.”

“Not all of them.”

“I liked those pants, you better not have thrown them out, asshole.”

“I did no such thing. Now, let me see what you’ve got. If you need new clothes, we’d better go shopping now before we go out to eat.”

“But since we’re not doing business type stuff, I can wear whatever,” Nick protested, clinging his light duffle to his chest and away from Katayama’s judgmental claws.

“We’re in _Paris.”_

If that was supposed to mean anything to Nick, he didn’t know what.

“Paris has pant thieves too.”

Evidently, that wasn’t Katayama’s point at all. He looked aghast at the threat to his neatly pressed slacks.

In the end, Nick was allowed to stay in his one remaining pair of jeans—black, but with no rips in them—and one of his old shirts, even though Katayama was clearly dissatisfied with the monochrome outfit. Katayama changed into a whole new outfit. Nick didn’t see the point. He’d looked posh and expensive in the sweats he’d worn on the plane.

Far from looking bedraggled from the flight, Katayama appeared positively refreshed as he led Nick through the streets of Paris.

“So why were you here the last time?” Nick asked, keeping pace with Katayama’s brisk stride.

“So you’ve finally done your research,” Katayama replied dryly. “But clearly not very thoroughly.”

“Huh? Are you kidding me? I’d never willingly learn stuff about you. Or do research at all. But you love it here, I can tell.”

Katayama’s glance was an accusation, as if Nick was overstepping some huge boundary by stating this simple and obvious truth.

But it _was_ true and Nick was sure of it. He knew he was right because Katayama knew exactly where they were going but took them there slowly, lingering on the journey. Nick had only been married for two days but he already knew that wasn’t his husband’s usual style.

Their destination, it turned out, was a quiet corner, and their dinner reservation was a lot more relaxed than Nick had been expecting. With Katayama’s micromanaging of his wardrobe, Nick had thought they were going somewhere insufferably stuffy. Nick liked it more out here on the patio than he would have liked it at a table in some five-star restaurant and he found himself grateful for this incongruous meal. Nick suspected that Katayama just liked to micromanage everything. Nick had spent seven days straight working with Katayama to micromanage the rest of their lives, hadn’t he? So it shouldn’t have been a surprise that even quiet patio dinners deserved lectures about appropriate attire in Katayama’s mind.

But the man across from Nick in this moment didn’t quite match up with the man across the desk from him at Coste Headquarters. Katayama in Paris—in this little cafe with a cup of tea in his hand as he surveyed the foot traffic—looked relaxed. At ease. Happy. The light from the setting sun fuzzed the edges that were so sharp in offices.

Katayama turned his attention from the streets and back into the cafe, pausing to scrunch eyebrows at Nick for staring.

“You know,” Nick said, leaning forward and taking Katayama’s chin. “You’ve got pretty eyes, has anyone ever said?”

It was a stupid question. Obviously, Katayama had heard about every aspect of his looks. But Nick had only just noticed these eyes as something more than just another ingredient in Katayama’s sour expressions. Katayama looked at Nick like he’d said the strangest thing.

“They’re black,” he said, simple and dismissive.

“Yeah, I can tell. There’s almost no change between pupil and iris. They’re like little voids, set in your eyes.”

Katayama snorted outright at this. Nick thought it was the first time he’d achieved a laugh without malice.

“Voids?” he asked. “Not onyx or black pearls?”

“No, voids suits you better. They’re beautiful, really.”

Katayama seemed to have no set reaction to such a remark, jolting completely to a halt as he tried and failed to think of anything to say in response. Then his body reanimated and he pulled out of Nick’s grasp. Had he really never been complimented on such an obvious mark of his beauty?

Whatever.

Nick dropped his hand again, only realizing once it was safely around his own mug that he was lucky not to have lost it to Katayama’s wrath.

* * *

“You’re kidding me,” Nick said, unimpressed with the wall of pillows Katayama was building down the middle of their bed.

“What?” Katayama asked, imperious and lofty. It was like he didn’t think Nick would stoop so low as to point out this ridiculous game of his. Like by pretending this was normal and reasonable, Katayama could make it so.

“The fucking ducks are bad enough, but you’re seriously playing pillow fort here too? Man, aren’t you embarrassed?”

“You’re a mouth breather when you sleep. I don’t like your breath getting on me. Or, I shudder at the thought, your drool.”

“I’m sure I didn’t drool on you after the wedding.”

“And let’s keep it that way, shall we?”

“Would Jesse have put up with this?” Nick wondered. It had been a thought more than a question but he saw the way Katayama’s shoulders seized up at it and his hand tightened into the fluffy white pillow he was arranging meticulously at the head of the bed, between the two lonely pillows left, one each, for them to sleep on.

_No_ , Nick answered himself. _Jesse wouldn’t have put up with this._

Nick sighed and scrubbed at his head—he didn’t see why Katayama insisted they share a bed if he was just going to pull stuff like this, but knowing Jesse would have vetoed it just to further Katayama’s discomfort made Nick less dubious about the stacked pillows lumped under the blankets.

“Whatever,” he said. “But no suing me if I knock down your fort on accident.”

“Legally, I don’t have the grounds to sue you over such a thing.” Katayama was back to fussing with the bedding as if he hadn’t been the least bit perturbed.

Nick let him have it. There was a certain absurdity to a man as serious as Katayama playing with pillows and Nick found that he wasn’t as annoyed by the shield as he had been last night, coming home to a sleeping husband and a whole ass wall of ducks next to him. Like Nick wanted anything to do with Katayama—like he hadn’t said already he wasn’t about to try anything.

But why should somebody whose only concept of trust was drawn in legally binding ink believe that?

“Tomorrow,” Katayama said briskly, eyes narrowing at Nick like he could smell that thought on him, “we’re going shopping so you have something more presentable to wear than—,” Katayama gestured over Nick, who still hadn’t changed for bed.

“I’m not going shopping with you,” Nick objected before he left Katayama to continue making the bed for their honeymoon.

* * *

Shopping with Katayama was even worse than shopping with Bobby. Nick wasn’t even allowed a say, Katayama just asked for his measurements and picked out things he deemed appropriate.

“I won’t wear that,” Nick warned as Katayama lifted a shirt up to examine.

“Why not?”

“It’s not black.”

“For heaven’s sake, you can’t honestly wear nothing but black at all times. Surely, you must be open to wearing navy? Or white? What about red? Don’t you like red?” Katayama’s question was directed at Nick’s red sneakers.

“Red’s cool. I could go for some red pants—,”

“Shirts. Red _shirts._ Absolutely no red pants. But what about these nice navy blue slacks?”

Nick pulled a face. “There’re black slacks.”

“It’s good to have some variety.”

“I don’t like slacks. Anyway, I need more jeans.”

“No you don’t, one pair is sufficient.”

“Then I’ll just get them alone,” Nick scowled, trying to stomp off. Katayama caught his arm.

“You won’t find any _here.”_ He glanced around the store as if to confirm it, expression growing troubled. “But fine, alright, I’ll pick out some new jeans with you. We can do that after we get you fitted for a good suit. There’s a little shop here that makes the best suits.”

“You don’t trust me to pick out my own jeans,” Nick realized, leveling an accusing finger on him.

“Can you blame me?”

“Yes. Just because you don’t understand fashion doesn’t mean you have to be such a wet blanket.”

“The fact that you think _you_ understand fashion is troubling. If you’d just listen to my advice—,”

“I could be hot?”

Katayama inhaled, ready to refute the statement. But he shook his head and dropped Nick’s arm with such force, there was no mistaking his response to that sentiment, verbal or not. Laughing, Nick shoved his hands in his pockets and let Katayama get back to shopping for him.

They spent the entire day walking the city and purchasing so much shit that Katayama called some poor peon to come collect their bags at each stop and take them back to the hotel. By the end of it, Nick had a whole new wardrobe. Katayama had expanded Nick’s color options, just as he’d threatened, mixing in grays and dark blues and whites and reds. And then he started lecturing Nick about what colors could work together, and how to match your belt to your shoes, and the art of selecting the perfect tie or pocket hankie or cuff links for an outfit.

Nick didn’t listen.

“Should have just let me stick to black,” he muttered darkly, planning to clash up his business attire just to piss Katayama off.

“You can’t wear all black, haven’t you been listening? That doesn’t match.”

“What do you mean? Black matches with black because black is black.”

Katayama made a disgusted sound that really wasn’t called for. “If just teaching you how to dress is this difficult, I do not look forward to your fumbling attempts at mastering business.”

Nick made a disgusted sound that absolutely was called for. “Don’t ruin my vacation by talking about that crap. Anyway, I want to go sightseeing.”

“We’ve been sightseeing.”

“No, we’ve been seeing whatever sights _you_ like seeing here. I want to take a tour, look at this brochure I got today, it—!”

Katayama snatched the pamphlet from Nick and looked down at it, flipping through it with unenthusiastic efficiency.

“When did you even get this? I can’t leave you alone for a second. We’re not going on some stupid tour.”

* * *

“Welcome!” their cheery tour guide greeted the group.

Nick grinned as he looked around.

“The tour hasn’t even started,” Katayama grumbled. “No need to look so starry-eyed.”

“Let’s do a fun little icebreaker,” the tour guide was saying. “I’m Louis and this is my seventh year running this tour. Why don’t we go around and get everyone’s name and what brings them here!”

The group complied, and when it came time for Nick and Katayama to share, they earned sweet cooing noises from everyone else at the news of their recent marriage.

“How did you two meet?” a woman asked. Nick thought her name was Debbie. The tour was started and they were all following after Louis, who wasn’t saying anything important at the moment.

“It was an arranged marriage,” Katayama answered pragmatically. Debbie looked concerned at the cold tone Katayama had used and Nick could see the gears whirring in her brain. She must have come to the—correct—conclusion that it was a loveless marriage and she looked crestfallen.

“Actually, we met before we knew about the engagement,” Nick chimed in, getting an interested and hopeful look from Debbie and a warning glare from Katayama.

“Did you really?”

“Just once, but yeah. His car broke down and I fixed it up for him.”

“Oh! How romantic!”

Louis spoke up just then, directing eyes to a sight that needed seeing and Debbie drifted away from Nick and Katayama, satisfied with their love story.

“You make it sound like you’re some hero in a bad movie.”

“But that _is_ technically what happened. You brought your car to me with four slashed tires and I got it back to you with four intact ones.”

“But it was a transaction. You made it sound like you swept in to save me.”

“That’s a better story than you being a brat to me at my place of work. And then losing us business by shit-talking us during your interview even though you literally had no reason to complain since you’d only barely dropped your car off.”

“I don’t recall saying anything that would lose your establishment business.”

“What did you expect to happen after calling a car shop _wretched_ when you’re seen as an expert in cars and have a crazy fan base?”

Katayama’s mood was sullen for the next leg of their tour. It was always sullen but he was in an extra bad mood now from being called out for his bullshit. Good. Served him right.

“Would you like a picture, fellas?” Debbie asked, wandering back over as the group took to snapping pictures of each other in front of their latest stop.

“Yes, we’d love one,” Nick answered, handing over his phone before Katayama could turn her away like he clearly wanted to. “Come on, love.”

Katayama’s eyebrow ticked but Nick swept an arm around his waist and pressed a kiss against his sharp cheekbone, holding it there just long enough to get a charmed giggle from their photographer. She’d gotten a good shot, but Katayama didn’t even look when Nick tried to show him.

“Brighten up,” Nick whispered as they started moving again. “It’s a cute picture, we can frame it when we get home. To prove our love.”

“Our love,” Katayama repeated disdainfully. But then he turned to Nick and his face shifted disturbingly, moving from disgust into something sickly sweet that Nick didn’t trust. “You’re absolutely right. It’s our honeymoon, we should act accordingly.”

Katayama slipped his hand into Nick’s and held too tight for comfort. He wasn’t pleased. But this seemed like a shitty revenge—Nick wasn’t the only one suffering now. But, then, wasn’t that Katayama’s motto? What had he said about doing something that made someone happy? That it gave them an advantage over you? Thinking about it, this was exactly the sort of revenge Nick would expect from Katayama. As long as Nick was unhappy, Katayama’s unhappiness was justifiable. But two could play at this game.

“Do you think if I proposed to you at a restaurant, we’d get a discount?”

“We’re already married. And we don’t need a discount.”

“But imagine the drama of it,” Nick pressed. “And, you know, I never _did_ get a chance to propose to you, pumpkin.”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t any of it.”

“Sure thing. Pumpkin.”

“Don’t push your luck, love muffin, you’re already on thin ice for dragging me on this tour.”

How could Katayama say _love muffin_ without cringing?

“You’re not a bad actor, sweet pea.”

“Years of practice.”

That shut Nick up. He wondered if this sort of war through endearments was something Katayama had waged with Jesse. He didn’t know why it bothered him but it did. Jesse had always had everything where Nick had had nothing. And it sucked, just a little, that everything he had now was once Jesse’s, was meant for Jesse, was only Nick’s because of a mistake the lawyers couldn’t erase.

His mood was darker than Katayama’s when Louis brought them to a stop in front of a river.

“The beautiful Seine!” Louis declared, launching into a speech that Nick didn’t listen to. Louis didn’t notice or mind but Katayama did.

“You’re the one who wanted to go on this tour,” Katayama hissed under his breath, close to Nick’s ear. “Can’t you at least listen?”

“Nope. I’m _looking_ , that’s what you’re supposed to do on a tour.”

“You’re supposed to _listen_ to the tour guide and learn about the sights you’re seeing.”

Nick registered Katayama’s complaints, but he also caught the tittering of their group, a snippet of a sentence that involved the words _young love,_ the attention shifting from Louis to them. Nick and Katayama were so close now, Katayama whispering what might have been sweet nothings into Nick’s ear, their hands intertwined. Young and in love. Not by a long shot, but Nick thought it was funny when Debbie called out to them.

“Give him a kiss!”

“That’s not—,” Katayama tried to object, but Nick saw the panic in his eyes, the unsureness there. He didn’t know what to do, what to say to this. And he only looked more harried when the whole group started up in a chant.

_Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!_

“Let’s give the people what they want, baby,” Nick grinned, notching a hand to Katayama’s cheek and leaning in slowly. Katayama’s eyes widened, showing off the pretty voids there well enough for Nick to see they were blacker than usual, more pupil than anything. At their wedding last week, Katayama had worn a better-concealed look of this same panic when they were declared husbands and told they may kiss. It was satisfying to see Katayama lose his cool, so Nick kept on leaning like he honestly intended to kiss Katayama.

It must have been convincing. As Nick’s face closed in on his, Katayama jerked away. Too fast, too violently. He teetered off balance and Nick was unable to catch him, unable to even keep hold of the hand he’d been clasping. All he could do was watch as Katayama disappeared into the Seine.

“Katayama!” Nick shouted in reflexive alarm. He was already taking a step toward the edge Katayama had fallen over when the man resurfaced, soggy black hair streaming over a furious face. Since he wasn’t drowning, Nick burst out laughing, which made Katayama madder.

Louis was frantic as he and Nick tried to haul Katayama out of the river but he refused them both, getting out on his own and standing, dripping wet, on the walk.

“I think,” Katayama said coolly, “that my husband and I will, very unfortunately, have to miss out on the rest of this tour. Have a good day.”

And he was off, not even waiting for Nick.

“This was fun!” Nick told Louis. “Thanks! Bye!”

And he ran off after Katayama, catching up to him but unable to stop the laughter as he accompanied his soggy, grumpy husband back to their hotel.


	14. Chapter 14

Nicholas was still cackling intermittently when Seiji squelched into their hotel, his awful husband on his heels. His shoes were all but ruined and Seiji hated the squishy feeling underfoot from his waterlogged socks and soles. _And_ he was still dripping, even if not very much. Anymore. The looks he got in the lobby…

Seiji ignored them all, squaring his shoulders and standing with as much dignity as possible while they waited on the elevator. He was relieved they didn’t have to wait long.

“You look like a sad, soggy cat,” Nicholas said as he pressed the button for their floor. “Bobby had a cat that hated baths, you remind me of him. So grumpy about it that it’s kinda cute.”

“Shut up,” Seiji warned him levelly, voice low as the elevator doors slid open again. “I’m not ready to talk to you.”

“Not ready?” Nicholas asked. “What, like you need to cool down before you can act civil? Because I don’t know why you care about that _now.”_

Seiji unlocked door 108. As soon as they were both in and the door was shut securely behind them, Seiji rounded on Nicholas, rage boiling over.

“I’m ready to talk now,” Seiji informed him. “What you pulled today—I would sue you if I could.”

“For not saving you from falling in a river?”

“For trying to kiss me for no good reason. I should have put it in the contract, I _knew_ I should have.” Seiji was so frustrated with himself, he felt ready to scream, which wasn’t an emotion he’d been very familiar with until meeting Nicholas.

“You don’t think a crowd of people chanting at us to kiss like a happily married couple counts as a reasonable time to prove our affection?”

That was the trouble. Seiji shouldn’t have trusted Nicholas with leaving kisses out of the contract but even if it _had_ been in the contract, today could have been argued as a necessary display. And Seiji was the one who’d broken away from the display.

“And I was just going to kiss your cheek again, anyway.” _Oh._ “You’re the one that freaked out about it and fell into the river.”

“I didn’t _freak out._ And how was I meant to know you didn’t intend to kiss me when you acted as if you were going to?”

“It was just a little joke, Katayama. You’re fine.”

“I’m soaking wet. This is all the fault of your stupid tour. I told you it was a bad idea.”

“Well, _I_ had fun.”

Nicholas was smiling to prove it, getting an eyeful of Seiji’s humiliation. _Let him,_ Seiji thought, bending down to pull off his poor oxfords, _it’s the only chance he’ll get._

When Seiji looked up again from his shoes, Nicholas’s smile had slipped. But his eyes were still on Seiji. This wasn’t a look comparable to the ones in the lobby, judgmental and curious and condemning. Nor was it like the amused appraisal Nicholas had worn the whole journey here. This was a look Seiji couldn’t so easily ignore but it took him a long while to place why.

Nicholas’s face was caught in an unfamiliar interest, something like appreciation showing in his curiously opened mouth and deep—almost hungry—eyes.

Seiji became suddenly aware of how cold and wet he was, how uncomfortable his white button-down had become after his dip in the Seine, clinging to him tightly. But he refused to look down and see whatever it was of himself that Nicholas was seeing. He had more dignity than that.

“And would you count your leering as necessary too?” Seiji asked coldly. Nicholas startled, eyes flashing up to his guiltily.

“I wasn’t leering,” he protested.

“Pathetic,” Seiji informed him. “You’d better not stare at other people so obviously, the paparazzi would see right through you.”

“I won’t. And it’s not my fault you’re so—.”

“So what?”

Nicholas shrugged and looked away. For some reason, words from the first night of their honeymoon came back to him in some false answer to his question.

_Beautiful, really._

Seiji turned away from his husband to take a badly needed hot shower. When he was done, he ran into a new predicament. He’d neglected to select fresh clothes for himself in his haste to get to the shower.

Towel wrapped securely around his middle, Seiji passed into the cool air of his hotel bedroom. Nicholas looked up at his entrance but looked away again just as quickly. Good. Seiji didn’t care for the sensation of those eyes on him.

Seiji knew he was handsome enough—there’d been articles and blogs about him for years, how could he not know people thought him attractive? But it made him uneasy that Nicholas, who so adamantly disliked him, found him attractive as well. Nicholas, who was his husband. Nicholas, who, legally, had some claim to him. Nicholas, who, unlike the rest of the world, could not be ignored. Seiji was very nearly untouchable. But Nicholas was his biggest vulnerability.

Collecting his things and avoiding looking at the man lounging on his bed as much as the man avoided looking at him, Seiji reminded himself that the contract didn’t change just because Nicholas had decided he liked the look of him.

“All better?” Nicholas asked him when he re-emerged from the bathroom, fully clothed this time.

“Even for a honeymoon taken only for appearance’s sake, this one has been impressively bad.”

“Aw, c’mon, I let you take me shopping. And we’ve had lots of good food. And you like France.”

“I fell into _the Seine,”_ Seiji said incredulously. “If anyone had been around to take pictures…” Seiji supposed he should count himself lucky that nobody had been. “We are not going on any more tours and that’s final. In fact, I shouldn’t allow you to choose any more of our outings at all.”

“Fine, alright,” Nicholas said, hands up, “no more tours…led by anyone but you.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning you can show me around properly.”

“Sounds like a nuisance.”

“I missed half of the tour today! Because you acted like a spaz over a little peck! We didn’t get to see everything.”

“You weren’t even paying attention.”

“It’s _Paris.”_ Seiji recognized the mimicking note in the word. “You keep acting like it’s something special. Show me why it is.”

What kind of moron needed to be _shown_ that Paris was special?

“Very well,” Seiji relented because it seemed a more harmless activity than others Nicholas might come up with. “I’ll show you around before we leave.”

* * *

Seiji _did_ love it here. He’d been the one to propose Paris as the honeymoon location with Jesse. Jesse really hadn’t been hard to convince. He’d been here a number of times, too, and Seiji knew he liked it. But Jesse liked Paris in the way he liked the box seats at theaters and corner offices on the top floor. Seiji loved France the way he loved driving with the hood on his convertible down and the first breath of fresh air stepping out of the office on late evenings spent working.

Seiji hadn’t let Jesse know how badly he wanted Paris. That was no doubt part of the reason Jesse had agreed to it so easily; he hadn’t recognized it as a real bargaining chip.

Seiji had looked forward to returning to France—to Paris—even with Jesse. But he hadn’t wanted to share the streets he walked now with Jesse. Hadn’t intended to show the cobblestone paths and pâtisseries and quiet bridges and hidden galleries to Jesse. To anyone.

“You know,” Nicholas said, licking the last of his mille-feuille from his fingers like a heathen, “I’m starting to think you might be right. Maybe there’s something to this place, after all. _Paris.”_


	15. Chapter 15

Seiji’s phone buzzed with an incoming message, interrupting him from his work. He glanced down at it and saw that the text was from Nicholas. They almost always were. Ever since Nicholas had started taking classes, he’d apparently become so bored that harassing Seiji with his every thought seemed appealing. It was driving Seiji insane. He’d silence the log entirely ifhe didn’t worry Nicholas would get into some sort of trouble that needed cleaning up. He couldn’t miss a PR disaster because he’d never seen the text about it.

This time, it was just a picture. The one taken three weeks ago on their honeymoon, Nicholas’s kiss on his cheek as frozen in time as all the shots of their first kiss. Begrudgingly, Seiji unlocked his phone to download the photo. He should send it along to have it printed and framed with their wedding pictures; it was the only photo they had from their honeymoon.

The phone buzzed again, the log jumping him down to a new text that proved him wrong. Here was another picture from that trip. From that same day.

Seiji turned off the phone without texting back, which was his usual way of handling texts from his dear husband. But he hoped that Nicholas would be able to infer the extra irritation with which Seiji turned off his phone this time. He did not appreciate that Nicholas had taken a picture of him sopping wet after his fall in the Seine. He’d like to erase that entire day from his memory forever. How humiliating to fall into a famous river in front of a bunch of strangers and all because he’d been unwilling to let his husband _kiss_ him.

Nicholas still maintained that Seiji hadn’t been in any real danger of getting kissed. _I was only playing chicken,_ Nicholas liked to say. _And you lost._

Seiji wasn’t entirely certain he believed that Nicholas had only planned to kiss his cheek again, but if he had, then it only made Seiji’s tumble more embarrassing. He didn’t like losing.

Seiji’s phone buzzed again, more persistently. Turning it back over, he saw Nicholas’s name flashing across the screen. Nicholas never called. Seiji picked up and regretted it at once.

“Do you like the pictures?” he asked.

“No.”

“I’m printing out the wet cat one to hang on the fridge.”

“Absolutely not. How tacky,” Seiji said with distaste, “hanging things on the fridge. I should have thought to add fridge space into the interior design—,”

“Katayama,” Nicholas groaned. “Who cares about _fridge space?”_

“I do. And, actually, that’s not my biggest concern about that picture. I want you to delete it. If it gets out—,”

“Who cares?”

“A lot of people. I don’t need that picture or the story behind them getting out. _You_ should care about that too. It reflects poorly on our marriage.”

“Are there _really_ people who give a shit about exposing our marriage as a sham?”

“Yes.”

“Like who?”

“Companies that have an interest in making either the Costes or the Katayamas lose face, to weaken them so that they can be replaced or be forced into a new deal.”

Nicholas’s dismissive sound on the other end of the line made it known that he was still skeptical, but Seiji knew the reality. And, as it would happen, the reality was scheduled for a meeting with him later this afternoon.

“I’ve got to prepare for a meeting now. Go back to your class.”

“I’m on lunch.”

Seiji hung up the phone. He didn’t have time for Nicholas’s nonsense.

There was only time to refocus his eyes on his computer screen when Seiji’s phone buzzed anew. He almost clicked it off without looking at it. But when he saw that it was not, in fact, Nicholas calling back, Seiji picked up.

“Good afternoon,” Seiji answered.

“Seiji, just the man I wanted to talk to,” Robert greeted. It was a ridiculous greeting, he’d always thought so. Obviously, Robert was looking to talk to whomever he’d called. Why else would he have called them? “You’re handling the Kane business, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“I’d like you to take Nick with you.”

Seiji was lost for anything to say. In the end, all he came out with was, “What?”

“Nick’s been doing well in his classes—,”

“Excuse my rudeness, Robert, but Nicholas has only been taking classes for a week and he texts me through all of them. I don’t think he even pays attention to them, much less is ready to be involved in such a sensitive meeting.”

“See, that’s where we can agree. This meeting is sensitive—Kane Industries has been nipping at our heels for years and they’ve been given to you to handle because of your unique position. You, Seiji, represent the bond between our two companies, a bond that Kane has always resented. We need him to see us as a united front, rather than as isolated companies. And…”

“And having my husband, the owner of Coste Motor, at my side would further that narrative,” Seiji finished with a sigh.

He’d have rather had Jesse with him for this. Charles Kane was a cutthroat and a lothario and Seiji didn’t care for him, but he could handle him. There were a lot of Charles Kanes in the world of business and Seiji had had to learn to do business with them. His son, on the other hand…Seiji hated when the glamorous young son of Kane Industries was anywhere near him. All his talking and coaxing and careless flirting—the way you felt like circles were being talked around you when you conversed—Seiji had never learned how to deal with Aiden Kane and Jesse was much better at that sort of thing than he was. Jesse wasn’t too far off, with his own brand of talking and coaxing and jokes that weren’t actually funny.

Jesse wasn’t Seiji’s favorite person by any means and he’d rather dreaded the prospect of marrying him for many years. But Jesse was useful. What was Nicholas? Nothing but dead weight, and that was if he was being generous about it.

“Very well,” Seiji agreed. “Send Nicholas over to my office and I’ll take care of it.”

* * *

Nicholas looked as presentable as Seiji had ever seen him. Even on their wedding day, he’d somehow talked the stylist into letting his hair stay a floppy mess. But today, it was styled neatly back and out of his face. There was nothing to be done about the shaved sides and back of his head, but this was better than nothing. And he’d managed to go the whole day without wrinkling his suit, which looked almost good on him, even if those shoes didn’t match. They’d all be sitting down, anyway, so it shouldn’t matter terribly.

“Remember,” Seiji said, adjusting the collar of Nicholas’s shirt, “do _not_ speak any more than is absolutely necessary, do you understand me? You will say hello and make pleasant small talk and then you will sit back and keep your mouth shut while Charles and I talk. And if he brings his son along, do your best to avoid engaging in any sort of conversation or activity with him.”

“Activity?”

“He’s got a fondness for seducing prospective business partners. Actually, Jesse says he’s got a fondness for seduction in general, but he finds particular pleasure in making his father’s life as hard as possible.”

“But I’m married!”

“Which would just make it even more fun to him, I’m sure. Do not disgrace me.”

“Fucking hell—I _said_ I wouldn’t cheat, didn’t I? So you can put away your judgey eyes, asshole.”

“Don’t mess this up,” Seiji said one last time before taking Nicholas to the conference room to wait for their guest.

Charles looked as slimy as ever and Seiji noticed that Nicholas took in the tall, graying man quickly, eyes sharp with an awareness they’d lacked before Charles’s arrival. Charles’s eyes were no less sharp and his appraisal of Nicholas no less judgmental. Right away, the atmosphere in the room was turning dangerous. These would be rocky waters to navigate.

“Let’s cut right to the chase,” Charles said bluntly, cutting Seiji off before he’d even had time to greet the man or introduce him and Nicholas to one another. “I made your parents a very generous offer, have they thought more on it?”

Seiji suppressed a sigh and drew out his chair. Charles had already seated himself and Nicholas followed suit quickly at Seiji’s indication that it was time for them to sit too.

“Katayama Energy is interested in doing business with you, Mr. Kane,” Seiji said simply. “But we have some concerns with the terms you previously outlined.”

“I look forward to hearing those concerns just as soon as the grown-ups arrive.”

“As I’m sure you know, my parents are busy people. I think you’ll find that I am as capable as they are and we can—,”

“Horse shit,” Charles snorted. “I won’t be patronized by dealing with a runt. You go tell your folks that I’m not talking anything with anyone but them. I need the real Mr. Katayama, not the juniors’ version.”

“Then you can leave,” Nicholas said calmly. Seiji cut him a warning look. What part of _don’t talk_ didn’t he understand? Nicholas ignored Seiji and leaned over the table, making steady eye contact with the man across it. “Your business has been delegated to _this_ Mr. Katayama and if you won’t talk to him, fine. Leave. Don’t waste our time with your tantrum.”

Seiji could kill Nicholas. There was electricity in the air and the tension between Charles and Nicholas was mounting, leading towards _something_ and Seiji was nearly positive he wouldn’t like the explosion when the crackling air caught alight. But then Charles laughed, breaking the moment.

“You’ve got some balls on you, kid.”

“Grew ‘em myself,” Nicholas grinned easily and relaxed back into his chair, gesturing at Seiji as if to say _go ahead._

So Seiji did. The meeting had got off to an unsteady start but Charles listened to Seiji and now negotiated with him like an equal, or close enough to one for the purposes of this meeting. There were plenty of comments about his age and inexperience, too. But Charles didn’t leave. Nicholas had called him on his bluff, depending on the assumption that Kane Industries was more desperate for this deal than Katayama Energy was. And then he’d let Charles play off his surrender as a joke. Not altogether a terrible plan, but it wouldn’t have worked with most men that Nicholas would have meetings with as he stepped into his new career. But it was just possible that Nicholas knew that and had read Charles Kane correctly, then played his cards well. Seiji might have been giving his oaf of a husband too much credit, but he was feeling kindly enough toward him for the assistance that he even allowed Nicholas to read through Charles’s proposal over his shoulder.

That was a mistake.

“Wait a second,” Nicholas said abruptly, jabbing a finger at a line in the middle of the page. “This makes it sound like doing business with Kane limits our ability to do business with other people.”

Seiji glanced at the line in question. He pointedly did not look at Charles, not interested in the amused condescension he’d find there at Nicholas’s interruption.

“That’s perfectly agreeable,” Seiji dismissed Nicholas, flicking his wrist to straighten the paper from the crease of Nicholas’s finger—and to try and _rid_ the paper of that finger. But Nicholas ripped the proposal from his hand and squinted at it in concentration. His lips mouthed out the paragraph as he read it.

“It’s saying you can only give your tech to fucking billion-dollar companies, isn’t it?”

Seiji and Charles were both startled by Nicholas’s outburst, loud and accusing and absolutely _not_ an appropriate way to express concerns with a business proposal.

“Nicholas,” Seiji said, the warning in his look spreading to his voice as well. “These terms don’t hinder our business.”

“What?” Nicholas’s foul expression turned on Seiji. “But if you agree to this, you can’t partner with other companies who need this sort of—,”

“Listen, kid,” Charles slid in, growing impatient, “Kane is a luxury brand, you understand that, right? If we go associating with tech everyone has, it lowers our brand, see?” Charles raised an eyebrow at Nicholas. Seiji felt the rebuke as if it was directed at him instead of his awful husband. He felt like a child and a novice, small and unknowledgeable when he wasn’t any such thing. Nicholas was. And he was throwing a fit now, dragging Seiji down with his childish outrage.

“All our business ventures are with companies that easily meet the requirements—,”

“The fuck is wrong with you?” Nicholas cut off Seiji’s attempted explanation. There was no calming him, it seemed. “What is the point of developing game-changing technology if you hide it away from everyone who doesn’t have money pouring out of their ass? All your clean energy is going to waste because most people can’t afford it! That shit shouldn’t be a luxury.”

“Nicholas.” Seiji placed a hand on Nicholas’s arm, trying to still it from its wild brandishing of the papers. It was no use. Nicholas jabbed the proposal at Charles.

“You can take this and shove it up your ass!”

“I think,” Seiji said, aware that, far from maintaining a calm and collected demeanor, he sounded frazzled, “that we’d better reschedule, Mr. Kane. I’m terribly sorry for the inconvenience but I’m optimistic about our future ventures together.”

Seiji walked Charles out, apologizing again with stinging cheeks for the humiliation of it. When he returned to the conference room, Seiji landed eyes on his husband and his fury was stoked further by Nicholas’s own indolent rage.

“What part of _don’t mess this up_ don’t you understand, you slovenly, uncouth, moronic swine?” Seiji demanded, grabbing the proposal from Nicholas violently.

“Me?” Nicholas asked, shooting to his feet and all but diving across the table to snarl at Seiji. _“I’m_ the pig?”

“Yes! You’ve made me look foolish and incompetent, made my company look weak and childish. Charles Kane is offering a good deal, one that could profit Katayama Energy greatly and you—,”

“Listen to you! God, I knew you were a prissy rich kid but you’re a full-on capitalist pig, aren’t you? You actually don’t give a shit about saving the world or helping people—all you care about is profit and image and it’s disgusting.”

“You don’t understand how business works. I’m not convinced you know how _anything_ works, actually. But I’m positive you don’t understand a word written in this,” Seiji shook the crumpled papers in his fist. “You don’t see the big picture and you don’t understand the big numbers and you should have kept your dumb mouth shut! This is a disaster.” Seiji pinched the bridge of his nose and allowed his eyes to dip closed for a moment.

“You’re awful,” Nicholas’s voice was dripping in disgust.

Seiji didn’t open his eyes but he felt Nicholas brush past him and heard the door slam behind him as he left.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> looks like we're back to odd-day updates for this month

Nick had known Seiji Katayama was a rich son of a bitch and a real piece of work when he’d married him. An elitist and a stuck up asshole. Nick could still remember the nasty curl to Katayama’s lips as he surveyed Nick and the yard full of cars, could still hear the superior note in his voice when he told Nick to keep his name out of his mouth. But, somehow, this last month had eased him into some sort of insanity, believing Katayama wasn’t all that bad. Particular as hell and full of derisive judgment and tons of nagging, but not terrible all in all. Blunt and in possession of a sharp tongue, sure. But heartless? Nick hadn’t thought so.

It was the marriage contract that had made him sympathize with the devil. Because, as clearly as Nick could remember Katayama’s face and voice two years ago in the shop and in that interview, he could also remember Katayama’s face and voice during specific points in their negotiations over their married life. The brusque, detached way he’d talked about sex and the perplexed response he’d had to Nick’s terms. The surprised but undeniable relief at being offered his own name. There was something about it all that made Nick sad. Sad for Katayama. And that had been his mistake.

Katayama, just like the rest of the people Nick was now constantly surrounded by, was a heartless bastard who only looked out for himself and his money.

Bobby had loved Seiji Katayama for as long as Nick had known him. Starry-eyed and sweet as a peach, Bobby believed the very best of the Katayamas and their advancement of clean energy. He was into that tree-hugging stuff so it made sense that such efficient green energy would interest him. It didn’t hurt that Katayama was gorgeous and their age either. So Nick had heard a lot about what a great man Seiji Katayama was from his best friend, since long before he’d ever even met the guy. But Bobby would be disappointed with the reality of his idol.

Seiji Katayama was not a humanitarian. Nick was sure he didn’t give two shits about the environment either. It was just business. Just profits to be gained or lost. He genuinely did not care if his company’s technology was helping people. Why make that sort of tech affordable to the masses when you could stick it in luxury cars, private jets, and yachts? The rich get richer and the poor get poorer and that was how the people with the power liked it. The cold, uncaring dismissal of Nick’s concerns by Katayama whenever Nick tried to bring it up made Nick realize that it was likely Katayama really didn’t have a heart.

Nick was left with a bitter taste in his mouth every time he looked at his husband for the week after their meeting with Charles Kane. They were even; Katayama couldn’t look at him without angry coals lighting in his black eyes.

“Nicholas,” Robert’s voice called Nick back to the present. “Are you even paying attention?”

“Uh.” No. No, he was not, and the way he’d slouched down in his seat and started grinding his teeth was a dead giveaway.

“We’ve got a lot of ground to make up. It will be a lot easier to span that distance if you pay attention and put in the work.”

“It’s not my fault I didn’t go to business school instead of preschool,” Nick snapped.

He saw the sting on Robert’s face from the rebuke but Nick wasn’t in a sympathetic mood. Robert _should_ feel bad. He’d cheated on his wife and taken exactly zero responsibility for it. But Nick had never been mad at his theoretical father growing up. Mom hated him but Nick hadn’t. He’d understood long ago that Esmeralda Cox wasn’t built for love. Who would want to stay with her? Who would want to stay for Nick? No one. But now that he was facing a fuck load of consequences for Robert’s actions, it was easy to get irritated about it. Especially when he was already irritated. Irritated because he was married to an asshole. And he was married to that asshole because Robert had cheated, because Robert hadn’t stuck around to know to warn good old Grandma Coste that Jesse wasn’t his oldest son.

With a sigh, Robert took off his reading glasses and dragged a hand down his face. The sigh wasn’t out of impatience with Nick.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Robert asked in a kind but unsure way.

“About what?” Nick still wasn’t in a good enough mood to make things easy for Robert.

“I know you’re a grown man, Nicholas. I know what I did was unforgivable. I know I wasn’t there for you growing up and I have no right to try and be your father now but I’d like to have a relationship with you. A good one. But it’s not as easy as that. So tell me if you want to talk. Tell me what you need from me for this to work.”

“None of you care about anything but your own hides.” Nick crossed his arms against his father’s seemingly sincere words. “You wouldn’t be asking me how we can make this work or trying to have a relationship with me if you didn’t have to. If your mom hadn’t fucked up her will, you wouldn’t give two shits about me. If I’d been born after Jesse, you wouldn’t have cared when Eugene called you—,”

“That’s not fair, Nicholas—,”

“No! What’s not fair is you thinking you can just do whatever you want and it doesn’t matter if other people get hurt as long as you and your money are left out of it. What’s not fair is treating my mom like she was disposable and never thinking of her again. Me saying the truth is fair.”

“I would have come to the hospital,” Robert said calmly, sidestepping Nick’s accusations. Maybe that was just as well. Nothing he could have said would have heightened Nick’s opinion just then. “I _did_ come to the hospital. The moment I heard your name.”

“Because the will—,”

“Because you were in the hospital and your friend didn’t know if you’d be coming _out_ of the hospital. I know this can’t possibly impress you, but I didn’t remember the details of my affair with your mother clearly enough to have done the math on the spot. It was only after I was at the hospital that I discovered your birthdate.”

Nick didn’t know what to say to that so he said nothing to it at all.

“Your—our deal with the Katayama’s,” Nick said, “does it have any limitations about what sorts of companies Katayama Energy can do business with?”

Robert regarded Nick and sighed again, replacing his glasses on his face, accepting the change in topic. It wasn’t actually such a huge leap but to Robert, it probably seemed that way.

“Why don’t you tell me?” Robert asked. He pulled out whole novels of documents and presented them to Nick. Nick accepted the task, more interested in it than the last one Robert had set him to.

The entire afternoon passed with Robert tapping away at his computer and taking phone calls, Nick sitting across his massive desk like a kid playing pretend at his dad’s work. He felt a lot like he _was_ that. He missed knowing what he was doing. He’d talked Joe into teaching him how to fix things when he was a kid, during one of the longer stints his mom and him had managed to hold down an apartment for, right down the block from Joe’s Shop. Mom’s boyfriend at the time was one of the angry ones, one of the ones that Nick didn’t like to be around, hadn’t trusted, even as a kid. Joe had let him hang around the yard and, with some persuasion and bargaining of chores, Joe had started teaching Nick about cars and how to take them apart and how to fix them. About customers and how to take them apart and how to read them.

It had been years since Nick had felt unskilled at the work he’d done. And he’d always been happy at the shop, always assumed he’d stay there and, maybe, take over one day. Joe didn’t have any kids. But here he was, cooped inside an office and reading contracts, learning business. And he was shit at it. But he was a hard worker and a quick study when he needed to be—he’d learned what Joe had to teach him. He could learn what Robert had to teach him too. He’d show Katayama and Kane and Jesse that he wasn’t some bumbling idiot.

“Find what you were looking for?” Robert asked when Nick dropped the papers he’d been reading down on the table.

“Didn’t find what I was looking for, actually,” Nick returned, distracted from his irritation now and not minding the way Robert smiled a little at him.

“Our deal with the Katayamas is about bringing our companies together—growing them together. Our partnership is more than a mere business deal. That’s why, of course, the marriage contract was in order. We don’t seek to police who they do business with because their business is _our_ business now too, you see?”

That piqued Nick’s interest.

“Do you mean that in a literal or metaphorical way?”

Robert thought on it. “Both, I suppose. Business done with Katayama Energy is between those two companies, but you, Nicholas, are the owner of Coste Motor and a high ranking partner in Katayama Energy. So their business is _your_ business is _our_ business, even if it’s not business done through Coste Motor.”

“Huh. Okay. So that means…do I get a say on things? With Katayama Energy? Does my opinion count for anything?”

“It counts for quite a lot,” Robert said slowly, curiously. “But you’re still young and your husband has not yet taken over Katayama Energy so your input is not absolute by any means. However, Seiji will listen to you.”

Nick laughed. “Not if he can help it. So can he? Or does he _have_ to take what I say into account?”

“Is this about your meeting with Charles Kane?” Robert hedged. Nick shrugged.

“I guess. Right now it is. In the future, it’ll be about other meetings too.”

“I get the impression that things…did not go smoothly with Charles.”

“He’s a smarmy slimebag and my husband’s an elitist toad.”

“Oh.” Robert’s surprise was enough to make Nick laugh. “Well, it sounds like you have quite a lot to figure out if that deal is going to work. And in answer to your question, _yes_. Seiji has to listen to you, but he’s not obligated to let you have final say, either.”

Nick nodded. “That’s good enough for me.”

“Why don’t you go work on that now? I’m about to close down for the night.”

Nick took the release gladly, gathering all the Katayama papers neatly on Robert's desk before standing to leave. Jesse was lurking just outside the door when Nick opened it and his smirk assured Nick that he’d overheard the conversation through the heavy door, but Nick couldn’t think what about that conversation had been incriminating.

“Having troubles with Seiji already?” Jesse purred. “I wish I could say I’m surprised but I should know better than anyone how difficult Seiji is to bargain with.”

Nick couldn’t place exactly why the remark felt sickening but it did.

“That’s none of your business anymore.”

“Maybe not. But, hey, there’s a reason business through marriage works so well. My advice? Take your business to the bedroom and work it out there,” Jesse remarked nastily before slipping into their father’s office.

Nick made a face at the door. _What a creep._

* * *

Katayama was all sorts of insane and the bright blue body pillow with brighter yellow duckies on it that had appeared in their bed the day after their wedding was only more proof of how bizarre he was. But Nick was glad now for the extra barrier between them in the night. He even _liked_ the body pillow—he woke up more days than not holding it. He wondered vaguely if Katayama had put it there as more of a buffer—a sacrifice, even—than just a simple wall between them. Nick didn’t remember grabbing Katayama that first night, but he never remembered grabbing the pillow either so it was possible he had. The thought was an unpleasant one. Snuggling Seiji Katayama? No thanks. But at least Katayama would have been more upset about it than he was and that was a reassuring thought.

Tonight, the pillow was neatly arranged in a straight line right down the middle of the mattress. Katayama sat on his side, his computer propped on a little lap desk as he did some last-minute work of some sort or another. Katayama didn’t glance up or pause in his work at all when Nick climbed into bed. They’d hardly spoken at all in days—after it had become obvious that any interaction would inevitably turn to a fight.

Nick beat his pillow and then fell onto it. He didn’t mind the tapping of Katayama’s computer or the dim light from the lamp. He wasn’t picky about where he slept; for most of his life, he couldn’t afford to be. And now…well, he still couldn’t afford to be choosy about this, could he? It was just in a different currency.

But tonight, Nick didn’t conk out right away. Katayama’s tapping played in his brain and made him feel restless. Giving up, Nick flopped over to face Katayama, grabbing the beducked pillow to his chest and propping it under his head. Katayama’s fingers finally paused as he spared a second to glare at Nick. Evidently, using the body pillow before he’d fallen asleep was worse than reaching for it while he slept.

“That’s not there for hugging,” Katayama said disapprovingly.

“Body pillows are made for hugging,” Nick argued. “But if you’ve got a problem with it, I’m sure I can find something else to hug.”

“What do you want?”

“To talk. About Kane Industries—,”

“Are you ready to apologize for the mess you made?”

“You have to listen to me.”

“I don’t have to do anything.”

“I haven’t just got a say in Coste business and we both know it.”

Katayama scowled in a way that told Nick that Katayama knew it and was pissed that Nick had figured it out too.

“You’re unreasonable and volatile. Not to mention you know nothing about business. To take your… _advice_ into account would be foolish.”

“I know that you could change the world,” Nick said. Katayama’s head jerked away from his computer again to stare at Nick in disbelief. “Katayama Energy could change the world,” Nick clarified.

“It already has,” Katayama said sharply.

“You’ve made expensive cars even more expensive. Big whoop.”

“Those cars are expensive for a reason, they’re of the best quality and they reduce—,”

“Don’t give me the speech about how great Coste cars are. It doesn’t matter how green they are if most people can’t afford to buy those cars and have to use gas guzzlers instead. It’s a difference, sure. But not a huge one. Not as huge as it could be or needs to be.”

“If you think Coste cars are too expensive, you should talk to Robert, not me.”

“Maybe I will.” Nick hadn’t considered that. But it _was_ his company, wasn’t it?

“I wasn’t serious.”

“But I am. Later, though. Until then, let’s talk about Kane’s offer.”

“It’s a perfectly agreeable proposal. Beneficial to us both. There are still a few points in need of improvement, not to mention some groveling to make up for your blunder, but I’ve rescheduled our meeting and plan to move into the final stages of the deal. You won’t be allowed to accompany me this time, I’m sure you understand.”

“Can’t you just add that part that restricts your business dealings to your list of points to argue over?”

“I don’t see why I would.”

“Because I asked you to.”

“And that means something?”

“You’d know better than me if it does. Look, it’s a power play, anyway. If he can control who you do business with, he’s in charge, yeah? It’ll set the scene for the whole partnership. And I’d read that contract real close before you sign onto it because who knows if he’ll be trying to restrict your business more, in little ways that all add up to you being trapped in—in a monogamous relationship with Kane Industries.”

“Your language is embarrassingly clumsy,” Katayama’s dismissive superiority made Nick remember all the reasons he hated him. But he didn’t let himself get angry. Katayama’s head tipped. “Though, I suppose you have a point. It’s just like Charles to try and monopolize our business. He’s been trying for years to weasel between the Katayama and Coste partnership. I’ll be sure to point out your concerns to my lawyer and look for it in my own dealings with Charles on Monday.”

“Don’t let him have control over who you do business with,” Nick pressed, knowing this was the way to get through to Katayama. Because helping people and making the world a better place just wasn’t enough. “What if you scout a really promising company when they’re still small? Getting in with cash cows early is good, right? But if you can only put your tech in established brands, you’re erasing so many options. Options that, maybe, you never end up needing. But if you _do…”_

“Then I’ll be trapped by the agreement with Kane Industries.” Katayama’s face was illuminated by the glow of his laptop, showing Nick the consideration that had softened his frown. “You may have a point,” he conceded, frown back in full force at having to admit it. Nick hid his smile in the pillow. “I’ll open negotiations on it.”

“Thank you.”


	17. Chapter 17

True to his word, Katayama didn’t let Nick follow him into the conference room this time. Nick had insisted on tagging along anyway and was left in the lobby of Kane Industries’ main building. That was part of the groveling, Nick assumed. Coming to Kane instead of making him come to them. Nick just hoped Katayama would keep his word and follow through.

“What’s got you so nervous?” a pleasantly breezy voice asked and Nick looked around to find its source. A tall man with long, golden-brown hair light enough to barely pass as blond in certain lights and glittering green eyes leaned against the wall.

How long had he been there? Nick hadn’t been paying attention in his pacing, thinking only of what was going on behind the closed doors.

“I’m just waiting on someone,” Nick said vaguely.

“This is an office building, not a hospital,” the man laughed. “Whatever news you’re going to get isn’t worth so much stress. Relax.”

Nick shrugged and got back to pacing. There was nothing more to say. But he was alone in thinking so.

“Say, my father’s in a meeting with the Katayama brat behind this door,” a light rapping of knuckles on the doorjamb. “You wouldn’t happen to be the husband, would you?”

“Sorry, I’m not your step-father but I’m sure he’s around here somewhere.”

“Cute. You think you’re funny. Nicholas, isn’t it?” The man held out a hand. “I’m Aiden Kane, I’m sure you’ve heard of me. And, if you haven’t yet, I’m sure you will.”

“Right,” Nick said doubtfully, but he took the offered hand and shook.

They’d only just finished their handshake when the door swung open. Nick was sure they’d somehow heard Aiden’s knock against the doorjamb but when Katayama walked through the door Charles held open for him, it was apparent that the meeting was at a close.

“I look forward to further discussion with you,” Katayama was saying. “And I do hope you’ll consider my requests.”

At that, Charles’s eyes slid to Nick and narrowed. So Katayama had followed through. And Charles wasn’t happy about it.

“How’d it go?” Nick asked Katayama quietly as they exited the building. Katayama was in possession of his usual cool and he’d left the conference room with confidence and control. Nick thought that meant it had gone well.

“Charles isn’t pleased with my terms but I think he’ll come around.”

“Cool.” Nick tried to keep it casual and chill, sliding his hands in his pockets to keep them from fist-pumping over his moral victory. But his pockets were way too empty. “Shit!”

“What?” Katayama demanded.

“My phone! I forgot my phone in the lobby—damn, just—let me go grab it. Don’t leave without me.”

“I’ll be in the car. If you’re not back in ten minutes, I’m leaving without you,” Katayama warned. Nick watched him walk away and had no doubt that Katayama meant it. So he hustled back into the office building and to the lobby he’d spent the morning pacing laps around.

Charles and Aiden Kane stood in there more or less where Nick and Katayama had left them, speaking in hushed tones. It didn’t sound like a happy conversation. Nick didn’t want to disturb them so he edged silently into the room and made for his phone, sitting out on a stack of magazines that were artfully spread on a dinky little glass side table.

“…can’t take that risk…” Nick heard Charles murmur. “That’s why I need you to…ruin everything…that boy…can you…”

Nick wasn’t really trying to snoop but he was curious enough to be slow about collecting his phone. Too slow. Aiden’s green eyes landed on him and, for just a second, a look of unsettled alarm crossed his face. Charles spun around and his expression was a growl without sound when he found Nick.

“What do you want?” he spat.

“I just forgot my phone,” Nick said, stupidly raising his hands up a fraction like he was under arrest or something.

Aiden scooped up Nick’s phone, no longer looking anything but suavely detached, much as he had earlier.

“You forgot more than just your phone,” Aiden told him.

“What?”

“My number,” Aiden winked, tapping at the screen. A buzzing sound emitted from Aiden’s pocket before cutting off with a tap of the thumb at Nick’s phone. With that, Aiden handed over Nick’s cell in its scuffed and stickered case. Nick took it, not really understanding what that had all been about.

“Uh. Thanks,” he said. “I’ve gotta go.”

“I’ll be seeing you around,” Aiden assured him.

Nick didn’t really like the sound of that but he nodded and hurried back out of the building, not wanting to get left behind by Katayama. He’d said something about Aiden Kane, hadn’t he? Yes, last time they’d dealt with the Kanes, Katayama had all but accused Nick of wanting to cheat with a man he didn’t even know. He’d said that Aiden liked to cause trouble.

As he speed-walked back to Katayama’s bright yellow convertible, Nick wondered if that was what was happening now: Aiden trying to stir up trouble by giving Nick his number. But Charles hadn’t seemed to disapprove of his son’s attempt on a married man. A married man whose husband was in the middle of negotiating an important business deal with him.

“You cut it close,” Katayama said when he climbed into the car.

“Just drive,” Nick grumbled. But his heart wasn’t in the grumble. Even if it had been for entirely selfish reasons, Katayama had taken Nick’s advice about keeping business options open.

Maybe Nick would be able to wear him down eventually. He still needed to talk with Robert about how to make their cars more affordable. It was just possible that Nick would be able to do some good here.

And one thing was for sure, he didn’t need any trouble right now. Nick opened his phone and cleared his call history. He wasn’t a cheater. And he definitely didn’t want Aiden Kane’s number. Katayama was a dick but at least he didn’t offer up slippery smiles.


	18. Chapter 18

“Nicholas,” Seiji called when he heard the lock jangle and the door open.

“What’s up?” Nicholas’s voice answered, lingering in the entryway. Seiji knew that meant he was taking off his shoes.

“I’d like to talk to you about the matter of a house.”

Nicholas groaned as he meandered into the kitchen.

“I’m not spending another weekend on open houses, I’m sick of them. Just pick one you like.”

Seiji frowned, looking up from the scallions he was chopping.

“What is the point of moving if you’re not even going to be an active participant in the decision of where we move? It’s a big decision; I’d rather not move again, which means moving into a house with the intention to live there for the rest of our lives.”

“The point? I thought you’d understand that one, Katayama. All the houses are more of the same, it doesn’t matter which one we buy as long as it’s not _this_ apartment. This will always be your place and I’ll always feel like an intruder here. You’ve got home-field advantage, and aren’t you always going on about not letting someone have an advantage over you?”

Seiji nodded thoughtfully. It was the same reason he and Jesse had always agreed to buy a new house together, why Seiji had always considered this apartment temporary rather than truly settling here—or anywhere. He shouldn’t be surprised that Nicholas wasn’t too much a fool to notice the unequal footing he had here. But he was, just a little. Between his husband’s lack of interest in the process of picking a house and his lax terms in the contract, Seiji had started to wonder if moving houses was just another thing Nicholas had waved his hand at to get the negotiations over with.

“I’ve only got one open house scheduled for this weekend,” Seiji said. “If you still have no opinion after that, I will make a decision.”

“Cool. What are you making?”

Seiji glanced down at his scallions, still dissatisfied with them. He could tell by Nicholas’s tone that he was dubious as well. Or, worse, amused.

“Dinner,” Seiji answered curtly.

“Chef Anne Burrell would be sad with your knife cuts,” Nicholas said seriously.

_“You’ll_ be sad when this knife cuts you.”

“Hey, I’ve already got a new scar this year, I don’t need another.”

“Besides, you’re no better at cooking than I am,” Seiji snapped, aware that he sounded defensive.

“But at least my stuff comes out tasting decent.”

“If you don’t like what I make, you don’t have to eat it. Starve—you’d be doing me a favor.” Seiji scowled at the recipe book instead of acknowledging Nicholas’s smirk.

Cooking had never been a skill Seiji had worried over. Jesse had always insisted on a full-time chef, but Nicholas had scoffed at the idea and said something rather rude about people with enough money to afford that sort of thing. And when he’d been alone, Seiji’s meals had been simple enough to arrange. But with a husband, dinner had become more of an ordeal. Even with the meal prep their cook did for them when he came over on Mondays, there was assembly required. And there were nights where they were on their own. Seiji disliked these nights. If he trusted Nicholas to go out in public, he’d campaign for restaurants instead. Nicholas had suggested take out. Seiji had pointed to the line in their contract that stated they share miscellaneous household chores. And so they took turns with dinner.

“Do you want help?” Nicholas asked.

“I don’t need your help.”

“Just trying to be nice,” Nicholas shrugged. “How was work?”

“You are a mystery to me. The first time we meet, you tell me not to bother with the pleasantries, and yet here you are, making small talk.”

“Actually, the first time we met, you told me you didn’t trust scum like me to touch your car or say your name. And I’m not making small talk. I want to know if there’s any progress with the Kane stuff.”

“None yet. Every correspondence we’ve had has led nowhere. It’s strange, though…”

“Yeah? What’s strange?”

“Charles seems perfectly content to talk in circles with absolutely no progress.”

“Doesn’t he need this deal more than you do?”

“That’s why it’s strange.”

“The Kanes are strange people,” Nicholas said. “What time’s the open house tomorrow?”

“Eleven.”

* * *

“It’s a quarter to eleven,” Seiji hissed as Nicholas coasted into the house. “Where have you been?”

“Breakfast with the boys,” Nicholas said, tossing his keys onto the table in the entry hall. “But I made it back in time, didn’t I?”

“Barely.”

Seiji shooed Nicholas back out the door at once. He’d been waiting by it for ten minutes. Now he locked it behind them quickly and herded Nicholas back into the elevator.

“You’re lucky it’s close,” Seiji said, glancing at the clock on his dash as he started up his car.

“I knew it must be,” Nicholas replied with a frustrating nonchalance. “You’d have told me the appointment was at ten-thirty if it was a far drive.”

Seiji hadn’t even thought of that. He should have. He decided to tuck the idea away and pull it out next time he needed Nicholas somewhere on time. Today, luckily, no such trick had been necessary. Seiji slowed his car in front of a house with high windows.

“Is this…?” Nicholas asked as Seiji turned up into the driveway of their destination.

“Hurry,” Seiji said, putting his car in park and climbing out. “We’re a minute late.”

Seiji walked briskly up to the front door. Nicholas scrambled after him, catching up just in time for Seiji to knock on the door and have it opened on the pair of them. They stepped inside and were taken through a tour of the simple two-story house. Nicholas paid as much attention to their realtor as he had to their tour guide back in Paris.

Seiji paid attention. The house seemed up to standard in all ways and it was perfectly agreeable in Seiji’s mind. Jesse wouldn’t have thought it grand enough, but Seiji didn’t mind its location on a quiet street instead of behind polished gates. And it was only a fifteen-minute commute from the office. All in all, it was up to Seiji’s standards too.

“I’ll give you a minute to look around the place,” Cheryl told them. “I’ll be right here if you have any questions!”

“Thank you,” Seiji acknowledged. Nicholas had already wandered off. Of course.

Sighing, Seiji went to go track him down before he broke something.

Nicholas was in the master bedroom. Much like the living room, it had soaring windows and a lovely view, though it overlooked trees and the sloped hill the house was built into rather than mountains. His face was less burdened than Seiji had seen it before. He hadn’t realized that Nicholas always carried tension in his eyes until this moment, when he could see a sort of childlike wonder alight in those eyes instead. A soft expression similar to surprise shaped his lips and early afternoon light filtered in through the tall windows to strike against Nicholas’s skin warmly and draw out highlights in his messy brown hair. He looked…content.

Seiji’s foot scuffed against the floor and Nicholas looked over, peaceful expression falling away as he noticed Seiji.

“I like this one,” Nicholas told him simply. Seiji nodded. It was the only opinion Nicholas had offered on a house thus far.

“I thought you might.”

* * *

Seiji didn’t believe in wasting time.

They were moving into their new house this weekend—the deal had been easy to close, all sorted within days. Cheryl had said it was the quickest she’d ever gotten a client into a house. A week exactly. Yesterday had gone to the movers and today Nicholas and Seiji were moving their remaining personal belongings in and starting on unpacking.

Nicholas had invited his friends, which Seiji found distasteful. He would have appreciated a warning, at least. There was only one of them left now, but Seiji had to admit this one wasn’t terrible to have around. Unlike the tall one, he was actually willing to help. And, unlike the short one, he had strength that Seiji could put to good use.

“I don’t like it there,” Seiji said, walking around the grand piano and coming to a stop in front of it.

“We’ve moved the piano a billion times,” Nicholas complained. “And you haven’t helped even once.”

“Somebody needs to direct where it’s going and, forgive me, I don’t trust either of you to have an eye for interior design.”

“True that,” Nicholas’s friend said. Eugene. His name was Eugene, wasn’t it? Or was this one Bobby? He thought it was probably Eugene—the other one looked more the sort to like shopping and Nicholas had mentioned that Bobby was a shopaholic. Seiji didn’t know the tall one’s name at all.

“This is the last fucking time,” Nicholas mumbled under his breath.

“Bro, how have you been married two months without figuring out to just go with what the guy wants? Keep him happy and life will be a lot easier.”

Seiji liked Eugene.

“I want it repositioned a little to the left. And bring it around so it’s at a slant, so you could see out the window if you sat at the bench.”

The men complied and Seiji was satisfied, nodding his head to signal they were finished with the task.

“Do you play?” Eugene asked, tapping a finger on a key.

“I do,” Seiji confirmed.

“What? Really?” Nicholas stared at him like he couldn’t comprehend this new information. Eugene laughed and shoved Nicholas’s shoulder.

“No offense, Nick, but you’re a shit husband.”

“Am not!”

“Do you even know anything about Seiji?”

“I know tons of things.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I do!”

“Like what?”

“Like…like he wears socks to bed.”

Seiji had had quite enough of this conversation but Eugene seemed to find it hilarious and, after his roaring laugh, he spoke without giving Seiji a chance to interject.

“Oh, yeah, that’s really something. You should say that in an interview, it’d convince people real good that you and Seiji aren’t going to be divorced before your first anniversary.”

Nicholas froze. “What?”

Eugene froze. Then glanced between Seiji and Nicholas. “Uh, haven’t you seen the magazines and stuff?”

“Of course,” Seiji interjected. “But it’s nothing to worry about.”

“Wait, what?” Nicholas repeated. He sounded like a real dolt.

“How have you failed to notice that we’re under constant scrutiny?” Seiji asked with exasperation. “Haven’t I said as much dozens of times?”

“I guess.” Nicholas scratched the back of his neck. “But I didn’t think anyone would actually care all that much.”

“Are you kidding?” Eugene asked with glee. “A secret heir? A stolen husband? A goddamn Cinderella story starring the gorgeous Seiji Katayama as the prince? Nick, man, you’re a goddamn soap opera.”

“Huh.”

Eugene rolled his eyes at Nicholas. Seiji supported the gesture full-heartedly. Nicholas could be oblivious to the extreme. Which was why it surprised Seiji so much when he got things right. But Nicholas was good at people, at reading them. He was less good at situations.

“You and Jesse had press stuff all the time,” Eugene said, popping open a root beer and leaning against the marble countertop. “Why haven’t you two done anything like that?”

“Everyone agreed it would be best to stay out of the spotlight as much as possible with things being what they are.” Seiji glanced at Nicholas as he said it. Nobody trusted him to behave properly during interviews. It would be months or possibly years before he was ready for that. Besides, things really _were_ complicated now and, aside from their initial press release and the coverage of the wedding, they’d elected to stay quiet on the matter.

“I think it’s stupid that the whole world’s suddenly so against this marriage.” Eugene was so casual in the way he spoke, like he wasn’t concerned at all with Seiji’s status. Bobby hadn’t been nearly so relaxed. “It’s not like it’s all that different from before. You never loved Jesse either, right? It’s always been a marriage for business and business alone. Why demonize it now?”

“People like to pretend that arrangements such as mine are love stories, not business deals. They’re upset at losing that illusion. It makes them feel uncomfortable that I would abandon Jesse, whom I’ve known all my life, to marry a man I’d met only a matter of weeks prior to our wedding. It’s a lot more heartless, but it’s the true nature of the tradition.”

“Insightful.” Eugene raised his can to Seiji before taking a swig.

But Nicholas was looking at Seiji strangely, a little frown working its way onto his face in a way Seiji didn’t think he’d seen before. It wasn’t an expression of anger or disgust or even dislike. It wasn’t one of boredom or irritation either. It was new.

But, no, that wasn’t quite right. Seiji had seen this expression before, or one like it. Back during the contract negotiations. Seiji sneered at Nicholas and looked away. He didn’t need pity.

“Since we’re all done with moving, let’s go grab a bite to eat,” Nicholas suggested.

“Burgers?”

“You know it.”

“Make sure to take your new house key,” Seiji warned. “I’m not getting out of bed to let you in if you come back late and pound at the door.”

“You’re coming with us,” Nicholas said, giving Eugene a look that even Seiji could read loud and clear. _Can you believe this guy?_ that look said.

“I’m not a fan of greasy foods.”

“You’ll like this place, it’s retro. Very cool. Great burgers.”

“And onion rings,” Eugene put in.

“None of that tempts me in the least.”

“They’ve also got good ice cream and I think we all deserve some after a hard day’s work.” Nicholas couldn’t possibly know of Seiji’s affinity for ice cream. He never kept any in the house. But coincidence or not, now that he’d said it, Nicholas seemed to sense Seiji’s resolve wavering. “Come on, I know you don’t want to cook tonight. Let’s go out to eat.”

“Oh, alright. Let’s go,” Seiji agreed ruefully. It was true that he didn’t feel like cooking.

“Bro, what are you doing?” Eugene asked when they were in the driveway, Eugene and Seiji both heading for their cars and Nicholas trailing behind his friend. But Eugene apparently didn’t want him because he shoved Nicholas in Seiji’s direction. “Go ride with your husband, you doof.”

“You should be nicer to me,” Nicholas complained, rubbing his shoulder. “I fixed that door for you.”

“You should be nicer to Seiji,” Eugene countered. “He married you. And what a mistake that was, right, Seiji?”

Seiji very nearly laughed, startled to have Nicholas’s friend side with him.

“Unfortunately,” Seiji said, “it was no mistake.”

“You both suck,” Nicholas said, pointing a finger between them. “I’m perfectly nice to my poor, helpless little husband.”

Eugene laughed and, strangely, opened the passenger side door to his car to climb into it. “I’ll see you guys at The Moon Rock Diner,” he called jauntily before pulling the door closed and climbing over the center console to get into his seat.

“The door’s broken,” Nicholas said in explanation, noticing Seiji’s bafflement as he watched the car pull out of the driveway in reverse.

“I thought you said you fixed the door.”

“I did. The passenger door. The driver side door is all kinds of fucked up. You never know if it’ll close again if you open it so until we get around to fixing the thing, it’s best to just keep it shut.”

“That’s absurd.”

“That’s the warthog. Come on, let’s get going.”

“He should really get a new car, that one seems to be falling apart.” But Seiji let Nicholas herd him toward his own perfectly functioning car as he spoke.

“Not everyone is made of money,” Nicholas scolded. Or maybe he only said it. Seiji wasn’t sure if there was a bite to the statement or not but, usually, there was. “But I agree, he should trade up. He loves that thing, though. Nothing for it. So I help him patch it up.”

“Really? You can fix it?”

“Fix what? The door? Yeah, no problem.”

“Everything,” Seiji clarified, backing out of the driveway after Eugene. “Can you really fix everything that’s ever been wrong with it? I imagine there’s been a lot wrong with it.”

“There has. And I can—I have. That’s how me and Gene met, he came in so often when he first got his license and was put in the warthog for a first car—one that can take a beating, you know? But that thing doesn’t need any help in falling apart. Anyway, I’d just started working at Joe’s around that time—officially, I should say. Getting paid and stuff. And yeah. Spent a lot of time with Eugene, fixing up his car.”

“I wasn’t aware you were that knowledgeable about car maintenance.”

Nicholas laughed. “What the hell did you think I did? I’m a mechanic, you elitist fuck. Obviously I know my way around a car.” Then Nicholas’s voice softened. “I can fix up cars and you can play pianos. We’re learning a lot about each other today.”


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~if you're in my time zone this WAS posted on the 7th~~

Dinner at The Moon was fun. Katayama had been pleasant enough, no nagging or comments that were _too_ insufferable. And he’d even tried an onion ring _and_ let Nick order him a sundae for dessert.

“Is it stupid that I’m surprised we’re here?” Nick asked, climbing out of Katayama’s car—the same one he’d had when Nick had first met him—at the top of a driveway instead of in a parking garage. The night was cool and dark and there were crickets chirping with no discernible sounds of traffic to interrupt their song. It was peaceful.

“It’s new,” Katayama said, pausing to stand with Nick as they looked up at their brand new house together. They had a house. “It’s not unusual to take some time to adjust to change.”

Which meant Katayama was feeling it too: the surreal impossibility of owning a house and coming home to it with your husband after a late dinner with good company. Nick glanced at Katayama, still looking up at his grand piano visible through the windows, and wondered if _he_ counted as good company. Tonight, possibly, he came close enough. Katayama looked over then, eyes catching Nick’s. They almost shared a moment, but Katayama’s mouth tugged down, as if displeased to find Nick in this moment with him.

“Shall we?” Nick asked, gesturing up to the front steps with a mock bow. Katayama made no reply but to walk past Nick and climb the steps. Nick followed.

Once inside the door, Nick was hit with another wave of unreality. This wasn’t one of the endless shitty apartments and squats he’d lived in with his mom, wasn’t the modest apartment he’d lived in since he was eighteen, wasn’t the impossibly large penthouse apartment that belonged to Seiji Katayama. This was a house he’d seen pictures of on the computer and felt emotions over he wasn’t ready to articulate.

Not just _a_ house anymore. _His_ house.

Katayama no longer seemed fazed at all. He made right for their bedroom and started rustling around in there. Nick followed him through this door, too, eventually and found him arranging toiletries in the bathroom.

“These,” Katayama said, holding up two slim bottles, “are yours.”

“No, they’re not.”

“Yes, they are. I took the liberty of purchasing you proper hair care products. You can’t keep using that horrid two-in-one.”

“Three-in-one,” Nick corrected. “And I thought there was a rule about not messing with each other’s bathroom stuff.”

“I didn’t do anything to your,” a wrinkled nose, “three-in-one concoction. There’s nothing in the contract forbidding me from gifting you with shampoo and conditioner. I’m going to put these here,” Katayama said, exaggeratedly placing the bottles in the shower. “I’d like for you to use them.”

Nick didn’t plan to use Katayama’s expensive hair care products, pushing off from the doorframe he’d been leaning in through with a shake of his head at Katayama and his stupid shampoos. But, three days later, Nick ran out of his own shampoo. He almost suspected foul play. The bottles Katayama had placed intentionally in the shower after The Moon glinted at Nick mockingly.

“Bastard probably siphoned off my shampoo,” Nick said to the winking bottles. He could just imagine it too; Katayama carefully pouring the bright red concoction down the drain while Nick wasn’t looking—just like he’d ferreted away his pants—leaving just enough to be believed as mere coincidence when it ran out. But Nick had had this bottle since before coming into his riches, so it _could_ be mere coincidence.

Eyeing Katayama’s gift, Nick finally gave in and picked one of the pair up and popped the cap for a sniff. It didn’t smell horrible. Not hoity-toity or froo-froo rich kid-y.

“Fine, you win,” Nick muttered to the bottle and squeezed out a dollop of it to lather in his hair. He noticed, setting it back down, that a third, stouter bottle had been added behind the first two. Body wash. Nick snorted but picked it up next.

Katayama had bought the stuff for him, after all, and it would be wasteful to leave it all untouched and go out to buy a bottle of his trusty brand just to spite his husband. It wouldn’t hurt him to at least use up what he had first.

“Nicholas,” Katayama’s voice nagged from the other side of the door just as Nick finished washing the conditioner from his hair. “If you can’t take fast showers, you need to budget out time for them in the morning or shower at night.” Nick shut off the water and grabbed for a towel. “I still need to brush my teeth.”

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you,” Nick grumbled, throwing the door open. “Come on in.”

Katayama’s scowl fell away the moment he saw Nick and he looked away with incredible speed, even going so far as to create a visor with his hand, blocking his eyes from landing on Nick again.

“You can _get dressed_ first,” he hissed.

“Do my eyes deceive me or are you blushing?” Nick asked, delighted by this development. “What? Never seen a guy in a towel before? You looked away so fast, man, talk about a virgin reaction!” This made the color blossom from cheeks to ears to neck. “Oh, right,” Nick realized. “I guess you must be a virgin. Still pretty funny though. You’re a grown-up, you shouldn’t be covering your eyes over a _towel_. Being promised since you were five doesn’t mean you couldn’t have had _a little_ fun.”

“Would you shut up? You know I wouldn’t have—when would I ever have gotten accustomed to—,” Katayama didn’t finish, gesturing blindly with his free hand at Nick. Nick badly wanted to tease more but it _was_ getting late and he had an important meeting this morning so he let it go.

“Would you just come in here and brush your teeth? I promise to keep my towel on.”

Katayama hesitated, but eventually his need to be time-efficient won out. He pointedly didn’t look at Nick when he came into the bathroom. When his darting gaze landed on the garbage bin instead, Katayama’s mood brightened. He even dropped his hand and glanced—almost smiled—at Nick.

It was easily the happiest Nick had made Katayama since they’d gotten married. Who knew that all it took was throwing out shampoo his husband disapproved of? And maybe Eugene had a point about keeping Katayama happy being the key to an easy life because he didn’t snap at Nick again over the towel or scold him when he dripped water from his hair onto the counter as they brushed their teeth at the matching sinks.

“Have a good day at work,” Nick said in goodbye on his way out the door. He was installed in the car Robert had lent him—his old rental now returned to Joe—and halfway to the office before he realized what an oddly domestic thing that had been to say. Come to think of it, this morning was the first time they’d shared the bathroom and they’d co-existed in there just fine. “Gah! I am _not_ turning into a married couple with _him.”_

* * *

Nick usually took lunch with some of Coste Motor’s employees. His business lessons were always in the building, whether with Robert or the strict Mr. Osharov who’d been assigned as his tutor or someone else, Nick reported to Coste Headquarters every day unless he was shadowing Katayama instead.

But today he didn’t make it all the way to the break room. A familiar man blocked his path but Nick couldn’t figure out what this particular man could possibly be doing _here._

“What are you doing here?” Nick asked bluntly. Aiden Kane smiled at him.

“I was in the area.”

“You can’t just come in here whenever you want. Can you?”

“I can do whatever I want,” Aiden assured him, sliding a hand onto his shoulder. “And I want to extend my apologies for being such a poor host last time we talked. I didn’t even congratulate you on your marriage. Seiji is a beauty, isn’t he?”

“Uh. I guess.”

Aiden hummed. “You’re not satisfied with him?”

“I’m not—I don’t think it’s really any of your business.”

“You’re right,” Aiden agreed. “I’m sorry, I keep messing this up. Let me take you out to lunch to make up for my rudeness.”

“I don’t really—,”

“Great!” Aiden’s hand ran down his arm and then hooked through it. “I know just the place.”

Nick was relieved when Aiden only pulled him into the same pizza place he’d been to several times now. Rich people sometimes had awful ideas about what made good lunch dates. Nick winced inwardly at his own stupid phrasing. This wasn’t a date. It was just…a slight abduction? For pizza?

“So, Nicholas, you were a mechanic before taking over Coste Motor?” Aiden asked, leaning over the small table, chin perched delicately on a hand. Nick scooted his chair back a hair.

“Yeah. I was.”

“That’s amazing,” Aiden gushed. He was laying it on thick. But what for? “I think you’ll offer a unique and invaluable perspective. Really, I’ve always said it makes no sense that the people making the best cars in the world don’t even know how to change a flat tire. Or a slashed one,” he winked in obvious reference to Katayama’s deflated car years ago. “But I guess that makes me a hypocrite.” Aiden tinkled a laugh. “I don’t know anything about the workings of yachts or private jets. But I _do_ know how to have fun in one. I should show you sometime.”

“Nah, I’m more of a car guy,” Nick said.

“How lucky for Coste cars that you are. I can’t wait to see the direction you take the company in.”

“If anyone will let me lead it anywhere, you mean,” Nick muttered without meaning to. He’d talked with Robert this morning about making more affordable cars and it hadn’t been taken as a serious idea.

“They’ll have to listen to you in the end. What are you planning? I love a good plot.” Aiden’s smile was wide and the pizza was good. And Nick told him, just a little, about what he wanted for the company. Aiden listened attentively for Nick's whole lunch hour.


	20. Chapter 20

Seiji’s eardrums were almost blown out when he opened the door to a loud, excited scream.

“Sorry,” the short man with the pleated skirt on his doorstep squeaked, shriek abruptly cutting off when he looked up at Seiji, “I thought you were Nick.”

“I could tell,” Seiji said, stepping back. “People don’t usually call me _Nicky.”_

“People don’t usually call me that either,” Nicholas said, loping into the living room and slinging an arm around Bobby’s shoulders. At least he had the manners to take off his shoes. “Only Bobby.”

“And Eugene.”

“And Eugene,” Nicholas agreed. “When he’s being an ass. He never calls me that seriously.”

“I wasn’t expecting company,” Seiji said. Nicholas glared at him but Seiji thought it was a fair statement. He hadn’t even said it rudely. Nicholas’s friend didn’t seem to have taken offense either.

“Bobby’s here to help set up the house.”

“He already helped set up the house.”

“Wait ‘till you see,” Bobby said excitedly, and Seiji couldn’t tell which of them he was addressing, “you’re going to love what I brought. Some personal touches, you know.”

Seiji was skeptical that Bobby’s personal touches would match his aesthetic.

“I did what you asked and went through all my photo albums, Nick. Come sit down and help me pick out which ones you want because I couldn’t decide.”

Bobby tugged Nicholas over to their coffee table and sat himself right on the floor—not even on the couch. Nicholas joined him. The brown paper bag that Bobby had brought with him was upended to spill across the table and Seiji saw what he had brought.

Pictures.

Dozens of pictures.

“You’ll want to come and see too,” Bobby invited Seiji, looking at him in that peculiar, awe-struck way Seiji had learned to expect from him.

He hadn’t expected Nicholas’s friends to like him at all, given what he’d heard Nicholas say of him to them. But Bobby had asked him to sign not one but _two_ magazines the first time he’d come over. One, an article in the Times about Katayama Energy’s progress in changing the world. The other, the announcement of his engagement to Jesse with that horribly dramatic headshot of his on the cover. Jesse had been displeased they’d chosen a picture of Seiji rather than him for the cover.

“Yes,” Seiji sighed, navigating carefully behind Nicholas and sitting down on the couch. “I suppose I’d better help select the photos. You do intend to hang them around my house, don’t you?”

“Our house,” Nicholas corrected brightly, sorting through the pictures.

“I’ll make sure you pick something appropriate.”

“There’s no such thing as picking the wrong pictures to hang; memories are always fun to have around,” Bobby said, unthinking and chipper. Then, face draining of color, “But, yes, that’s a good idea…”

“Seiji.”

“I know,” Bobby squeaked again, ears turning pink around all the jewelry he had in them and head ducking forward. “I know your name. Who doesn’t know your name? You’re _Seiji Katayama._ I just feel wrong saying it,” he jabbered, “calling you that like I’m allowed to actually say it—,”

“You are,” Seiji said irritably. “It’s my name, what else would you call me?”

Nicholas looked over his shoulder, eyes dancing and lips quirking at Seiji. Seiji sharpened his eyes on his husband in return. Had Nicholas set Bobby up to this? Had he warned Bobby against speaking Seiji’s name too? Sooner or later, he’d have to get over that.

Bobby nodded a little self consciously and started picking through the photos.

“This one’s a classic,” he said, selecting a photo of three brightly smiling boys that Seiji recognized. That was Nicholas’s lock screen, wasn’t it? But he’d never before noticed the edge of a fourth, tall boy by Bobby’s side. His head didn’t fit in frame.

“Good one,” Nicholas agreed, snatching the photo and smiling down on it. “Mr. Jensen thought I wouldn’t graduate. I showed him. And Mom.”

Nicholas seemed proud at the declaration but Seiji noticed that Bobby’s lips pursed and his large eyes turned sad as he rested his head against Nicholas’s shoulder quietly. Nicholas didn’t even seem to notice the concern or the comfort. Seiji didn’t know how he stood it. He hated when people looked at him like that.

But he got the impression that Nicholas’s life before now had not been an easy one. He didn’t think it strange that Bobby knew more about that than he did. Nicholas didn’t talk about it and Seiji didn’t ask. It wasn’t his business and he didn’t care to know anything more than necessary about his husband.

“Talking about classics,” Nicholas said, words wrapped in a laugh as he plucked out a photo from the pile to present. _“This_ was a good night.”

“Eugene’s twenty-first was legendary,” Bobby nodded sagely.

“You’re not hanging that on my wall,” Seiji said flatly, glad now that he’d come over to supervise.

“It’s my wall too and yes I am. I get to have pictures of my friends hanging around my house.”

“Not when they look like _that.”_

“Shakira came on,” Bobby giggled like that was any explanation at all.

“And that requires taking off your shirt?”

“Gene likes to dance,” Nicholas shrugged, grinning at the picture. “And look, you can see Bobby filming in the background for Abuelita.”

“And there’s your arm,” Bobby said, tapping at the arm in view next to Eugene. Seiji tracked the arm back to the shoulder it belonged to. Judging by the thin strip of visible torso, Nicholas was _also_ shirtless.

“I never say no to a dance-off. ‘Sides, it’s in the bro code that you can’t let your friend make a fool of himself alone when it’s more fun to join in on the clownery.”

“And nudity,” Bobby said, giggling again.

“Shirtlessness,” Nicholas corrected, glancing back at Seiji. “I promise there’s no nudes in here.”

“You’re not hanging that up,” Seiji repeated, wishing _that_ image hadn’t been put in his head. Nicholas in a towel was bad enough to plague it already.

“Fine, then I’ll put it on the fridge.”

“We talked about this. You’re not cluttering up the fridge space like a child.”

“Then I’ll sleep with it under my pillow.”

“Pick a different photo.”

“Oh, I’ll pick lots. But I want this one.” And with that, Nicholas fondly deposited the picture on top of the last one he’d selected and went back to sorting through the others.

Seiji’s input was repeatedly ignored. In an attempt to curb his irritation, Seiji dismissed himself to the kitchen and took his time getting water. He took so long, in fact, that when he rounded back over to the living room, it was empty.

Seiji glanced toward the clamoring voices that could be heard from the bedroom and made for the stack of photos Nicholas had decided he wanted to hang up. Rifling through them, he meant to pull out the one of Eugene’s _legendary_ twenty-first and put it somewhere safe, as he had with Nicholas’s awful jeans. But the picture wasn’t in the stack anymore. He knew better than to assume Nicholas had seen sense and put it back with the others.

Walking into the bedroom, Seiji saw that he was right. Nicholas had dug out an atrocious picture frame covered in hearts that they’d received as a wedding gift. Seiji had thought he’d thrown it out after writing a thank you card.

“You can’t hang it up in that,” Seiji said, fighting the urge to snatch the thing from Nicholas’s hands.

“I’ll let you decide where and how to hang it,” Nicholas offered, smiling at Seiji and holding out the frame like a peace offering.

“Fine,” Seiji agreed, taking it. He could think of something suitable enough to do with it. Probably. “I’ll hang it for you. But _no more_ pictures with any clothing removed, understood?”

“Sure.”

“Oooh, Nick, I love this coat,” Bobby said, popping out of the closet. Why was he in there?

“Katayama picked that out,” Nicholas shrugged. “All the stuff in there was his choice if it wasn’t yours. Except for my leather jacket.”

“So cool! Seiji, I love your style,” Bobby gushed, disappearing back into the closet. Seiji heard hangers clanging around and assumed _that’s_ what Bobby was doing in there. Exploring Nicholas’s expanded wardrobe.

“Thank you,” Seiji acknowledged. “And I suppose I should thank you for getting him into something more presentable than ripped jeans and faded band t-shirts.”

“Hey! They aren’t all band shirts. I’ve only got, like, two of those.”

“Two too many,” Seiji said. But he hadn’t confiscated the things. Nicholas didn’t wear them to work or when he went out with Seiji. He knew better.

“You should be glad Nick’s fashion sense is all black. His sense of style is, unfortunately, miserable. He’d dress like a clown if he weren’t so committed to the black on black look.”

“I would not!”

“I love you, Nicky, but it’s true.”

“Surely, it’s not that bad,” Seiji asked.

Bobby nodded sadly at Seiji as he patted Nicholas’s arm consolingly, as if Nicholas was likely to pass away from his poor taste.

“This is just what I feared,” Nicholas said dramatically. “Me and Dante are doomed to spend hours in the husband chair while you two go shopping, aren’t we? Dante’s too big to share, though. Bet I’ll have to sit on the floor, there’s usually only one husband chair.”

Seiji was about to remind Nicholas that he had no particular fondness for shopping, but he got caught up on an unfamiliar term.

“Husband chair?”

“Just a chair,” Bobby explained. “In a mall. For grouchy non-shoppers to sit in. Grouchily.”

“Ah,” Seiji said. “How considerate of the shop owners to include such a feature.”

Bobby started jabbering then about all the shops he liked to go to with his—Dante. Seiji listened politely. If Nicholas’s friends liked him, it was better to keep it that way. If he offended them, who knew what Nicholas had told them that the press would love to hear? And they weren’t so bad, all things considered. Out of all the annoying people Seiji could have inherited through marriage, Eugene and Bobby—and Dante, if he even counted—were rather agreeable. Shirtless photos from legendary birthday parties notwithstanding.

* * *

“Do you want to come pick up the frames? I’m leaving now, you have thirty seconds to decide if you’re coming too.”

Nicholas’s head popped up over the armchair of the couch he’d been lounging on at Seiji’s question.

“They’re done already?”

“As all your photos were standard sizes, it wasn’t hard for the shop to put everything together overnight.” For a fee, of course, but Seiji didn’t mention that. If Nicholas had any interest in their finances, he was free to check them, but Seiji was tired of being judged for using the money he had just because other people _didn’t_ have it, so he didn’t mention that fact aloud. “Do you want to come or not?” Nicholas stared at him dumbly. “They’re _your_ photos.”

“Yeah! Sure, I’ll come. I just thought…” But what Nicholas thought remained a mystery to Seiji because he got to his feet and collected his things without finishing. “Ready?” he asked at the door, hopping into shoes he didn’t bother tying.

Seiji rather regretted inviting Nicholas along, the way he was dressed today. At least, he consoled himself, picking up his keys, Nicholas’s pants were whole instead of hole-y.

The pickup didn’t take long and they were back home within the hour, bringing in the photos in their varied and arrayed frames.

“I’ll call someone to hang these up this week,” Seiji said, directing Nicholas to set down the spread of photos he was carrying against the wall in the downstairs TV and game room, behind the pool table. Tucked into the middle of the collage of Nicholas’s friends was the one Nicholas had bargained to hang up. It blended in well enough here, Seiji decided. There was also a beach photo in the cluster, though it went against Seiji’s wishes for clothed photos only. He really was being too lenient with Nicholas. But this one focused on Nicholas standing proud on the beach as a wave loomed heavy behind him and the thought of it taking Nicholas out and dragging him back out to sea as Bobby had described it amused Seiji enough to let it stay.

“Why call someone?” Nicholas asked.

“Pardon?”

“I can hang these, easy.”

“I’d rather…” Seiji started, wondering if there was a tactful way to convey he didn’t trust Nicholas to do a nice job of it. Then he remembered he didn’t care about tact with this man. “I want these professionally hung,” he finished flatly.

Seiji needn’t have worried about offending Nicholas. He just tossed back his head and laughed. Seiji wished he _had_ been offended, it would have been less irritating.

“I can hang pictures. It’s one of the odd jobs I used to pick up.”

“I don’t trust you.”

“Give me a chance.”

Seiji selected one of the single frames he held and pressed it into Nicholas’s chest, making sure it was securely held before turning and gesturing for Nicholas to follow him up the stairs to the main floor.

“Prove you can hang that and I’ll let you try the others,” Seiji sighed, pointing to the spot in the hall to their bedroom that he wanted the picture hung.

“Got it,” Nicholas nodded. He scampered off before returning again with a toolkit he set delicately on the floor.

Seiji watched him carefully as he hung up the portrait—a landscape Seiji had selected to help fill out the walls with more than just Nicholas’s friendship escapades. He was impressed by the work; Seiji himself had never hung anything, but Nicholas had some sort of tool he kept checking the frame against and when he stepped back, the picture appeared perfectly straight and in place.

“I suppose that’s satisfactory,” Seiji admitted begrudgingly. Nicholas, arms crossed smugly as he leaned back against the wall, smiled at Seiji. _I told you so,_ he said to Seiji without words.

“What’s next?”

Seiji told him.

They spent the entire day hanging pictures. Seiji’s graduation photo with his parents went next to Nicholas’s with his beaming friends. Seiji didn’t have many photos of himself or his childhood to hang—only enough to be tasteful. But he noticed that Nicholas, according to the story his selected pictures told, hadn’t existed before high school. Didn’t exist with anyone but the three boys always in photos next to him. There were mothers in some of the photos, but Seiji could tell neither of them belonged to Nicholas. One clearly had Eugene’s nose, the other Bobby’s eyes. By now, Seiji wasn’t surprised by the absence.

Seiji pulled out the photos from their wedding and the pictures of views Seiji had taken from their honeymoon, all professionally printed and framed and carefully packed away for their move. As long as Nicholas was hanging photos, Seiji decided to put these ones up as well.

“Are we done?” Nicholas asked, hours later. Seiji surveyed his latest job and nodded in approval.

“Yes, I believe so.”

“Thank fuck for that,” he said, wiping his brow. “You are insanely hard to please with your _aesthetics._ And I think we’ve got enough pictures to last us the rest of our lives here. _Jesus._ What a long day.”

“You’re the one that volunteered to do this,” Seiji reminded, unmoved by Nicholas’s exhaustion. “I, nor the contract required it of you. I would have been happy to hire someone.”

“Yeah,” Nicholas grinned, “but it feels good to do it yourself sometimes, you know? Get something done with your own hands.” Nicholas looked around the living room contentedly. Proudly. _“I_ did this. Makes the place feel my own, I guess.”

Seiji thought he could understand that. He hesitated briefly, then: “Actually, there’s one more picture I’d like hung. If you…”

“I’m good for it,” Nicholas said, picking up his toolkit again. “Where to now?

Seiji led him back into the bedroom. In their closet, behind his slacks, was a large frame wrapped carefully in a blanket. Seiji pulled it out now and gingerly unwrapped it.

“I recognize that, don’t I?” Nicholas asked. Seiji nodded. “It’s from the apartment. I thought all the art there was issued from a decorator or something.”

“This was the only personal photo there,” Seiji confirmed. All the others had been left in the penthouse for the next owner to glance over every day without really seeing them. This one was Seiji’s. The only thing that had ever made his residence feel like _his._

“Above the bed, yeah?” Nicholas asked, already heading that way.

“That’s not…”

“I don’t mind,” Nicholas said, looking at him funnily. “That’s where you had it in the last place.”

Slowly, Seiji nodded, bringing his picture to rest against the mattress as Nicholas climbed onto it.

“It’s pretty,” he said, hefting the picture up and testing it against the wall before measuring. “Where’s it from?”

“Paris.”

“I should have guessed.” Nicholas glanced down at him. “You never did tell me about your first visit there.”


	21. Chapter 21

“It’s a photo,” Katayama said. He paused so long that Nick was tempted to roll his eyes and say _I can tell._ “This is my view from my bedroom balcony in Paris.”

“Did you take this?”

“I did.”

“It’s a nice shot. I think.” Nick didn’t really know much about fancy photography mumbo jumbo. But he thought the picture looked nice. Peaceful and pretty and…light. Happy.

“I spent a year there. On an internship with a partner company.”

“Yeah?”

Katayama nodded.

“Mother and Father thought it would be good experience. It was. I learned a lot that year.”

“Tell me,” Nick prompted, running his trusty stud finder over the wall he intended to hang his husband’s favorite picture up on.

“About what I learned? I would think you have enough business lectures during the week; in fact, I know you think you have _more_ than enough lectures by the end of Monday.”

Nick chuckled at Katayama’s light criticism.

“Tell me about Paris. About your year. How old were you?”

“Seventeen.”

Nick exhaled, the air shaping out of his lips like a low whistle. “Seventeen, huh? And all alone in Paris?”

“Not all alone, exactly. My tutor at the time saw me settled in and he came around several times to check on my progress. But…yes, for the most part, I was on my own.”

Far from sounding lonely, Katayama’s voice betrayed a wistful longing. Nick glanced over at him and saw it on his face too, eyes softened and lips relaxed, his view of Paris reflected in black eyes. It wasn’t a sad emotion the way Katayama wore it, but it made Nick sad to look at.

“In Paris, everything I did, I did as myself and I did on my own. Every mistake I made was my own. And every triumph, too. The world never felt quite so wide as it did when I looked at it from that balcony.”

“I bet it was a bit of a change from the micromanagement of your life here. Funny, I thought you liked all the planning and fussing.”

“It’s not fussing to be prepared and have a course of action for every eventuality.”

“Yup, you _do_ like that stuff. So why’d you like being away from it so much?”

“I wasn’t—I had a purpose in France. I was still helping my company and I was bettering myself in preparation to start working there. I _had_ a plan. _I_ did. Not with anyone else and not for anything but myself and my work. No parties or social functions, no meetings with Jesse to discuss our contract. The only time in my life I ever felt like a separate entity from all of that was the time I spent in France. I had the chance to be someone. Someone other than _Jesse Coste’s fiancé.”_ Katayama’s voice turned bitter at the end and Nick could guess why.

Seventeen in Paris. When he’d come home, it wouldn’t have been long before his engagement was announced and he was known to everyone as _Jesse Coste’s fiancé._

“You’re more than that now, though,” Nick offered, pausing before taking his hammer to the nail held at the ready. “Whatever you were in Paris, you’re still that here.”

“I was better in Paris.” Katayama sighed and sat on the bed, throwing Nick off. Not in physical balance—Katayama’s weight didn’t offset his own footing at all. But Nick hadn’t expected it—somehow, displaying exhaustion by sighing and sitting down heavily seemed too human for someone like Katayama. “Charles is a different breed from the men I worked with in Paris.”

“Slippery,” Nick agreed, thinking of Aiden too as he said it. “What are the men in Paris like?” Nick asked, but snorted loudly before Katayama could make a reply. _“Not_ like in the fun way,” he clarified, though he didn’t think Katayama had even picked up on the accidentally ambiguous phrasing until Nick pointed it out. “Like in the business way. I’ve decided that good old Dmytro just isn’t full of enough fun business lectures to satisfy me these days.”

“He lets you call him Dmytro?” Katayama asked with some interest, looking up at Nick curiously.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say he _lets_ me.”

“I somehow suspect my old tutor wishes he’d retired last year.”

“He’s your tutor? Man, that explains so much.”

“Dmytro’s the one who recommended me for the internship. He used to travel a lot and suggested to my parents that it could be beneficial for me to study abroad too. Before settling with Jesse and getting tied to everything here as we take over our empires.”

“That was decent of him.”

Katayama nodded, his eyes set on that picture of his, waiting against the headrest to be hung. Nick continued his work and Katayama stayed quiet through the noise of it. But as Nick hoisted Katayama’s view to hang above their bed, Katayama’s voice picked up again, his eyes following the picture.

He told Nick about his business in Paris but Nick heard about the freedom he’d found there instead. Autonomy was something Nick could understand coveting. As Katayama described his apartment there—tidy and small and empty of everyone but him—Nick saw his own apartment—shitty and minuscule and _his_. As Katayama talked about working with the reputable and respectable men in Paris, Nick thought of the grease and sweat accumulating on his skin while he worked at the shop. As Katayama talked about being apart from the narrative of his life, Nick understood the freedom in that, remembering his own break from the narrative pushed on kids like him. He hadn’t fallen to the life his mom had always promised him he would.

Nick had fallen into a different narrative than that, the one Katayama had grown up living in. The one about two boys—now men—who married for the good of their companies and built a life together based in business. Already, Nick could see how it was a lonely story.

Katayama had never been kicked out of anywhere he’d lived, had never worried about when he’d be able to eat next, had never watched the total on the cash register tick up above the price he knew he could pay, but Nick could understand why Paris meant so much to the man. He loved it there for the same reason Nick loved Joe’s old shop and the Labao family home and the treehouse in Bobby’s backyard. He loved it because it was the first place he’d ever been allowed to be more than the life he’d been promised.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Friday the 13th! (that has nothing to do with the chapter, i just wanted to say)

An invitation came in the mail for _Nicholas and Seiji Katayama_ the first morning in this new house that Nick woke up under a stunning view of Paris—a view Nick liked rather more now than he had at the penthouse. Nick laughed as he read the letter over, flipping it around to show Katayama.

“Think the Kanes have a wiretap in our house?” he asked. It wasn’t such a huge coincidence for a letter from the Kanes to arrive after a discussion about them had happened in this house; the Kane deal was one of Nick and Katayama’s main points of conversation. But Nick still got a kick out of it.

Katayama squinted at the letter with a frown and scanned it over, seeing, as Nick had, that it requested their attendance at Charles Kane’s birthday party.

“I’ll RSVP tonight,” Katayama said. _He_ hadn’t gotten a kick out of it. “Put it on the dining room counter before you lose it.”

“I can keep track of a letter.”

“I’m sure. On the counter, please.”

Nick didn’t really care about the party invitation so he tossed it on the counter and thought very little of it until Katayama disrupted his gaming call with Eugene the following Saturday to ask if he was getting ready.

“For what?” Nick asked, popping an earbud out.

“For the party. Charles’s birthday, remember?”

“Oh. We’re going to that?”

“You thought we weren’t?” Katayama’s eyebrows were very judgmental just then. “Of course we’re going. We’re trying to convince him to sign a deal, it’s only polite we show our faces when invited to his party.”

“Right. Gotta butter him up.” Nick signed off his call with Eugene and went to shower. His tank was getting a little musty, he noticed as he took it off and tossed it in his specially-assigned hamper.

When he was done, he found an outfit already picked out for him.

“Don’t argue,” Katayama warned before Nick had gotten a word out. “Just put that on and let’s go.”

“Whatever you say, Your Majesty,” Nick said with a mocking bow. Katayama’s unamused eyes watched him deliver it, though Nick noticed they stayed decidedly on his face—Katayama still had not gotten used to towels, which still amused Nick greatly.

The moment Katayama’s attention slipped off him, Nick stuck out his tongue at his husband and at the outfit he’d laid out on the bed behind him. But he did put on the slacks and silky wine-red shirt Katayama had selected once the man had vacated the room.

“Good,” Katayama said when Nick came into the living room, dressed and ready to go. “You look passably presentable.”

“You’re looking hot too,” Nick said dryly. “Isn’t it pretty early to turn up?”

“Not at all.” Katayama narrowed his eyes at Nick from the door as he unhooked his keys. “What sort of parties are you used to going to?”

“None, really,” Nick admitted. He hadn’t had time for partying in high school and the only friends he really kept in touch with were Eugene and Bobby. And Dante, by association. The closest they did to partying was movie night or playing video games together online. Eugene’s twenty-first was the most party-like party Nick had honestly ever been to.

“Just as well,” Katayama sighed. “This won’t be like anything I imagine you might have gone to anyway. No, it’s not early. It’s good to get to these sorts of functions and say your hellos before people get too lost in their, shall we say, _indulgences_ to care one way or the other what you say. Of course, there are times when such lack of inhibitions can prove useful, but that was always…”

 _Jesse’s job,_ Nick guessed, finishing the sentence in his mind. Proud and proper Katayama led the charge with gracious practicality at the beginning of the night, making good impressions and talking good sense, and as the night got on, Jesse could wheedle anything they needed out of the drunks. A good team, some would say. But Nick knew better. A good team was more than efficient tactics, and Nick doubted Katayama and Jesse had anything more than that between them. That and years of fucked up game of tug-of-war.

Nick didn’t press Katayama more about the details of the party and just let Katayama drive them there. He saw on their arrival that Katayama was right. This was _nothing_ like anything Nick would ever have attended.

It was at a crazy huge mansion—complete with a fountain in the driveway. Nick and Katayama had had dinner with Robert and with Katayama’s parents a handful of times, but the grandeur of this place made the Coste and Katayama residences both look modest. Charles Kane clearly had flashier taste.

Katayama handed his car off to the valet—this place was big enough to have a _valet—_ and they walked to the doors together, which were opened for them without so much as a knock against the wood. The sounds of music and light chattering were immediate and they walked toward the noise until they found the party. Bunches of fancy people with fancy glasses of fancy alcohol with fancy smiles and words and laughs were milling about. Nick didn’t know that he liked it much. Glancing at Katayama, Nick meant to gauge if he did. But he was gone before Nick could even get a proper look at him.

Katayama was pulled into the throng right away, tons of adults—adultier adults than them—circled around him to exchange pleasantries. Katayama nodded and modestly accepted praise given him, his manner perfectly refined and demure. Nick gaped at him, at the way his face automatically rearranged itself into something blank and unaffected and so not like the usual resting scowl. Nick was discomforted by the sight, and even more discomforted by the glimpses of Katayama as he really was in between moments, when no other eyes were on him.But Nick’s eyes were on him and he could tell now.

Katayama didn’t like it here. He didn’t like the people he was talking to. Didn’t enjoy the small talk or the necessary act of politeness that reduced him to more a feature in the room than a person in it.

“Looks like your husband is busy,” a voice said, appearing at his shoulder, a hand appearing there shortly after. “Why don’t I show you around the place. Introduce you to everyone—someone ought to.”

“Uh, I think I should stick with…” Nick tried to protest but it was no use. Aiden had his claws in him and wasn’t letting go. So Nick found himself being towed from group to group and cheerily introduced to everyone. And it wasn’t terrible, actually. It was better than being left alone. Aiden, at least, knew how to get a conversation going between Nick and these people he had nothing in common with.

“Enjoy yourself,” Aiden said, hand lingering on Nick’s shoulder after a round across the floor. “I’ve got to go say hello to Father dearest’s newest wife, I’ll spare you the pleasure.”

Nick nodded, not missing Aiden in the least when he left. These business type people actually had semi-interesting personalities under the suits and now that Nick knew how to find them, he was set for the night. He and Katayama crossed paths briefly once, but not for long. It was better, honestly, than when they were treated as a set. That just felt awkward. But as the party progressed and got rowdier, Nick became conscious of his absent husband. Were they meant to be sticking together? Nick didn’t know a thing about married behavior in a real way.

“You getting along with Seiji well?” Nancy asked, noticing Nick’s line of sight, which had drifted over to Katayama, who still looked miserable underneath his gentle blankness.

“Yeah,” Nick said. It wasn’t like he could tell the truth and it wasn’t like people asked those sorts of questions expecting the truth anyway.

“I bet it was a shock,” Bailey ventured. And Nick realized as all eyes focused on him that they were all keenly interested in this. Nick supposed this was pretty good gossip, just like Eugene had said.

“It was,” Nick agreed. “But it, uh, worked out pretty good, you know?”

There were laughs all around but Nick didn’t want to talk anymore about it. He wasn’t sure if he was even allowed to talk about it. Katayama probably wouldn’t want him to say anything on the topic that could be misconstrued as weakness in their marriage and in their companies. So he bailed out and, finally deciding to bite the bullet, he made a beeline for Katayama. He didn’t make it.

“Having fun?”Aiden asked, pulling him out of the stream of people.

“The drunk karaoke happening in the other room’s a good laugh,” Nick admitted.

“There’s another room that’s fun, let me show you.”

“But the party’s downstairs,” Nick said skeptically as he was pulled up a flight of stairs.

“Just trust me!”

Nick didn’t trust Aiden. Not at all. And when Aiden opened a door and tugged Nick into a bedroom, Nick’s bad feeling was confirmed.

Aiden was trying to stir up trouble and Nick didn’t want to have anything to do with it.

“I’m gonna go downstairs,” Nick said, pulling out of Aiden’s grasp. “I was actually just going to go find—,”

“I know you don’t really like him,” Aiden cut him off, advancing on him with alarming sensuality. “Sure, he’s gorgeous. Not as gorgeous as me, but not hideous. It’s just too bad his pretty face can’t make up for how cold he is. I know he must be neglectful, can’t be a good bedmate either, I’d bet. So why not try me instead?”

Aiden was pressed up against his body.

He was leaning in, long hair falling out of place to tickle Nick’s cheeks, his eyes closed and a satisfied smile already on his face.

“Woah! Wait! No—I, uh, no, thank you, I’m good, actually,” Nick said, jumping out of Aiden’s trajectory, then taking him by the shoulders to push him back, away, _off_ of him.

“Nicholas—,”

“I’m going to go find my husband!” Nick announced, way too loudly, before bolting from the room.


	23. Chapter 23

Seiji had spent the last two hours socializing with Charles and his many guests. Playing nice at parties was one of Seiji’s least favorite duties. And he’d forgotten to coach Nicholas on proper behavior, a fact he’d realized when Nicholas had scampered off instantly instead of sticking by his side. But nobody had come to him yet with tales of his husband’s terrible manners so he must have been doing alright.

Seiji, for his part, was ready to scamper off somewhere too. Somewhere away from crowds and people. He’d made his rounds and said his hellos and he would return to the festivities soon enough, but…

But he needed some space to breathe. And a handful of minutes was hardly too much to ask. So he slipped away with murmured assurances of his return and was looking for a secluded sitting room or bathroom to find a moment of peace in when he ran into his missing husband. But to say that _he_ ran into his husband was a generous way of putting it.

Nicholas barreled into him quite literally and at full speed, toppling them both backward.

Seiji’s back hit the ornate wooden railing around the grand staircase and, on reflex, he grabbed onto Nicholas’s shoulders, fingers grappling in silky fabric, trying to ensure his safety. He was only very temporarily concerned with his safety because other concerns soon filled his mind and chased all other thoughts out.

Nicholas’s arms were both braced against the rail on either side of Seiji and he was discomfortingly close in every way—his knee was jammed between Seiji’s, his chest was flush against Seiji’s, his face was mere inches away from Seiji’s. He was too close and too much. Seiji felt both claustrophobic and as if he was teetering on the edge of a cliff. The latter part was no doubt due to the fact that he was bent over the railing rather precariously, and the former had to do with how _trapped_ he felt by Nicholas’s body in this moment.

But the biggest worry manifested in the slim figure of Aiden Kane slipping out of the bedroom that Nicholas had just exploded from. Aiden took one look at them and winked, waving his fingers cheerfully before bounding down the stairs.

A hand pressed into the small of Seiji’s back and Seiji realized belatedly that he was being guided into a more upright position. Nicholas’s eyes were wide and worried when Seiji looked to them instead of down the stairs.

“I didn’t!” he said at once. “I swear I wasn’t— _cheating_ on you or anything.”

“It looks suspicious, Nicholas,” Seiji said coolly, “to be alone in a room with a notorious bachelor while your husband is left alone downstairs.”

“I wasn’t trying to leave you,” Nicholas protested. “You left me first. And I _wasn’t_ doing anything with Aiden. I told you, I’m not a cheater.”

“He looked happy.”

“Probably to see if he could make you mad at me. I just ran out on him, I bet he’s looking for revenge.”

“A convenient excuse. But,” Seiji had to concede, “I can’t imagine why else but to upset me Aiden would want anything to do with _you.”_

“Thanks, babe, I think you’re a catch too,” Nicholas replied dryly, temporarily distracted from his worry by obvious irritation.

“I was about to go in that room,” Seiji mused slowly as he thought the situation over, ignoring Nicholas’s offense. He’d seen Aiden shortly before disentangling himself from conversation, perhaps Aiden—who had attended many of the same gatherings as Seiji—had predicted he was about to seek out a quiet room. “It certainly would have caused some trouble if I’d found you in the throes of passion with him so soon after our wedding. I told you, five years was the minimum requirement for—,”

“And _I_ told _you_ that I don’t need a minimum requirement. My loyalty is yours until I die, whether you want it or not.” Nicholas’s arm around his back tightened at the sentiment, reminding Seiji that it was there at all. For an instant and an instant only, Seiji thought that this must be what it was like. Real love. To be held tight and told your trust hadn’t been—never would be—betrayed. “I just wasn’t expecting Aiden to go after me, that’s all. Like you said, why would he? I thought he’d need something more from me before trying to—but, I should have known better, the way he kept at it, trying to stir up shit. I let my guard down, Katayama, and I’m sorry I did. But I _didn’t_ kiss him. And I didn’t give him the chance to kiss me either.”

Seiji didn’t much like the implication that this was not the first interaction Nicholas had had with Aiden and yet it was the first one Seiji had heard of. But Nicholas’s hand was held firmly against his back and his jaw was set determinedly and his eyes…

“Alright,” Seiji said because it was clear Nicholas wouldn’t stop looking at him with that fierce intensity until he did. “I believe you.” Seiji firmly pushed Nicholas off of him. “But I hope you’ve learned better than to let Aiden Kane—or any other pretty boy—lead you around. Even if you don’t cheat, people will talk. Rumors are just as dangerous as truth.”

“Right. Sorry. Won’t happen again.”

“It had better not.”

Nicholas flipped around to settle next to Seiji against the railing, elbows resting on the wood and body slouching in a casual and inelegant posture.

“You don’t like parties, do you?”

Seiji grimaced. “Is it that obvious?”

“Only because I know you’re not yourself unless you’re glaring,” Nicholas laughed, tipping his head back. His awful hair flopped when he did that. “You’re like a doll here, nice to look at but without substance. Why is that?” Nicholas’s head rolled over to him, still tipped back. The position was near comical but Nicholas’s eyes were sharp and assessing.

“I’ve been attending events of all manner since I was a child,” Seiji said, unsure why he was answering this ridiculous man. “I know how to behave at any function I attend.”

“But you’re not a child anymore. You’re not some decoration of your parents’ or a prop of your company’s brand. You’re a real person with your own personality and opinions and you know what? Those opinions mean something. I think you should stop playing at being a pretty, passive thing and show these people who you are, really. Let them know what to expect from you when they meet you in their business dealings. Let them see who it is that’ll take over Katayama Energy.”

Seiji stared at Nicholas, affronted by the unsolicited advice. A strange prickle of emotion lit across his skin. It was a sibling to the feeling he got when Nicholas spoke to him using only his last name or when he scolded Seiji for some aspect of his life he’d always taken for granted because he had the money to do so. But this feeling wasn’t quite that. It wasn’t the burn of shame and indignation. It wasn’t _entirely_ unpleasant. He felt…seen.

“What lovely words,” Seiji said harshly. “But you don’t understand as much as you think you do. You could never understand my position, you’re just a—a surf.”

Nicholas hooted a laugh and pushed himself off the banister.

“A surf,” he repeated. “That’s a new one, never been called that before.”

“You presume too much with no experience in this world to back it up.”

“If experience in this world makes you view yourself as an asset instead of a person, I’m happy to be a surf.”

“It’s about time we return to the party. People will start to wonder where we went.”

“People will just assume we ran off to some closet to grope,” Nicholas shrugged.

“Nicholas!”

“What? It’s true. And isn’t that better than the other rumors this night could have started?”

“Even so,” Seiji huffed, beckoning Nicholas to follow him down the stairs. Lazily, Nicholas did.

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to allow pretty boys to lead me around anymore.”

* * *

the party went late, as Kane events were known to do, and Seiji was glad to finally be home when he unlocked the door and let himself and Nicholas into their house.

Bed was a welcome idea, an even more welcome reality. Seiji brought no work and no book into bed with him tonight, ready for sleep the moment he was under the covers. But Nicholas was dawdling. Seiji had half a mind to turn the lights out and let him stumble to bed in the dark but there was no need. Nicholas finally emerged from the bathroom.

“Would you get the lights?” Seiji asked.

“Sure,” Nicholas agreed, but he came over to turn his wretched lamp on first.

“Where,” Seiji asked in alarm as he watched Nicholas turn on the lamp, “is your shirt?”

“Huh?” Nicholas looked down at himself. As Seiji had already noted, there wasn’t a shirt there. “Oh, it needs to get washed.”

“It? Surely, you’ve more than one.”

“Nope.”

Seiji wrinkled his nose. “And how often do you wash it?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.

“Dunno. Just whenever it starts smelling funky.”

“Oh,” Seiji said faintly. “That’s repulsive.”

Nicholas shrugged on his way to the light switch, bare back shifting as shoulder blades rose and fell. No, this absolutely would not do. It was unacceptable that Nicholas thought boxers were appropriate pajamas, that he thought he was allowed to climb into Seiji’s bed practically naked.

Something would have to be done about this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quick note in case it would throw off anyone's groove to not know in advance, but I will likely be taking Tuesday/Wednesday off for (virtual) book release party reasons, as one of my favorite series is getting a new book out this week haha so not a big gap by any means and if I have time to get up a chapter, I will. But be warned, I might be busy basking in stormlight until Thursday. Love you all and thanks as ever for being the coolest cats! <3


	24. Chapter 24

“Nicholas,” Seiji called. No response. Nicholas’s car was still in the driveway, but the house was dark. Had he gone out with friends? They could have picked him up. Assuming Eugene’s car was still driving at this point.

A rudimentary look through the house proved it empty. He must have gone out. It was of little consequence. Nicholas would be home eventually and Seiji would talk to him then.

He flipped the light on in the bedroom, coming into it to put down his parcel. A groan emitted from the bed, which was still lumpy and unmade and, Seiji saw now, occupied.

“Ten more minutes,” Nicholas tried bargaining.

“You are such a bum,” Seiji said disapprovingly. “It’s past noon, how are you still asleep?”

“’m sleepy.”

“Well, get up.” Seiji went to open up the blinds and let sunlight into the room. Nicholas shoved his head under a pillow. “I’ve got something for you.”

Nicholas’s shifting body froze, considering. Then he sat up and squinted at Seiji.

“What is it?” he asked. There were imprints of wrinkles from the sheets across his chest and a wrinkle from the pillow across his cheek. Seiji had never met anyone that could sleep quite like Nicholas could. How did one manage to turn unconsciousness into something so _messy?_

“Here.” Seiji offered him the parcel, wrapped in thick brown paper. Nicholas took it from him cautiously. “Open it. I think you’ll find it useful.”

Nicholas tore it open carefully, with plenty of mistrustful glances Seiji’s way.

“I’m not wearing these,” Nicholas said flatly, staring with disgust at the pajamas he’d finally pulled from the packaging. “No way.”

“You can’t come to bed naked.”

“I don’t! But I’d rather come to bed naked than in matching pajamas with you. Eulgh,” Nicholas made a face and dropped the blue sleep shirt he’d been examining with dismay.

“You’ll wear them,” Seiji insisted. “It’s disgusting to sleep next to someone who wears the same shirt for days on end—,”

“Then I won’t wear a shirt at all.”

“Which is even worse. You’ll wear those pajamas like a civilized human being.”

“Like hell I will,” Nicholas muttered under his breath, still glaring at the set.

Seiji ignored Nicholas and Nicholas accepted the silence. This was how they spent their days: minimal interaction and no speaking to each other without reason. As the day got on, Seiji didn’t even realize Nicholas had left until he arrived back home. Seiji heard the _thud thud thud_ of a couple steps into the house, then heard the retreating thuds followed a minute later by the softer sounds of socked-feet against floor. Their entryway was always covered in muck and footprints because Nicholas was always late to remember to take off his shoes. Seiji shook his head out of habit at the thought of his messy spouse and got back to his work.

“Want me to close this?” Nicholas asked, pausing at the door to Seiji’s home office. Seiji looked up from his computer.

“Hm?”

“Your door,” Nicholas said, swinging the door in question back and forth. “Do you want me to close it now that I’m home? You usually have it closed.”

Seiji thought about it. “Do you intend to be loud?”

Nicholas thought about it. “No.”

“Then you may leave it.”

Nicholas nodded and was gone. True to his word, Nicholas kept quiet for the rest of the day and Seiji was able to work on the Jenkins deal in peace. But, when night rolled around again, there was only more trouble.

“I thought I made myself clear,” Seiji said when he came to bed and found Nicholas already there, chest as bare as it had been the night before. “Where is your terrible tank top?

”Still needs to be washed.”

“Then you can wear the pajamas I got for you. Go change.”

“Sure,” Nicholas said. “I’ll wear the stupid pajamas you got me. But you understand how this works, right? With bargains and deals? I’ll wear the pajamas you got for me on nights that you wear the pajamas _I_ got for you.”

Seiji crossed his arms, irritated that Nicholas had picked something so stupid to pull out bargaining chips with. But Nicholas was correct, of course. That _was_ how this worked. The way to get the other to do something was through giving in to them, just a little. Just as much as they gave into you. And Nicholas’s terms were perfectly fair.

“Fine, it’s a deal,” Seiji agreed. Nicholas grinned and leaned over the bed, pulling a pink-striped bag from under the bed. He’d planned this.

Seiji sighed and took the offering by its handles made of ribbon. He’d expected to be given pajamas adorned in cartoon frogs or some such nonsense, but the bag made him second guess that assumption. Seiji carefully poked through the glittering tissue paper until his fingers brushed against something cool and silky. Seiji glanced up from his occupation and found Nicholas watching intently, face brimming with excitement.

Seiji already had a bad feeling about this as he drew the garment out of the bag. It unfurled in his hands, something bright red and lacy falling from the folds of black fabric. There really wasn’t very much of it. And, of what little there was, much of it was transparent.

Nicholas started cackling. All Seiji could do was stare at the garment he’d been given, aghast. It was a nightgown, if it could even be called that, with a plunging top made of silk and intricate lace, and a skirt of sheer chiffon that would hardly reach past the buttocks. It was a dainty, flouncy, delicate thing and it must have cost a pretty penny. Seiji held it by its thin straps between thumb and forefinger, completely disgusted to own it.

“You’re forgetting these,” Nicholas said, voice hoarse and choked from laughing. He shoved the red lace at Seiji—panties, as fancy and luxurious as the nightgown. Seiji supposed they might as well be bright and beautiful, as they’d be clearly visible through the gown Nicholas had bought for him. Not that he’d ever be wearing either. Seiji snatched the panties from Nicholas and shoved them, along with the pitiful pajamas, back into their bag.

“Should I go change?” Nicholas asked with an impossibly wide grin.

“No,” Seiji sneered, dropping the bag by his side of the bed to deal with later. “What you should go do is die.”


	25. Chapter 25

Nick would have thought that this new life of his would get easier and more natural as time went on. Instead, settling into his new life got more unsettling as the months passed. It wasn’t that it got harder to adjust, it was that it was weird to _be_ adjusting—to be _able_ to adjust.

The perpetual grease under Nick’s fingernails was gone and he paid more attention during his dumb, boring business classes every day. Because, somehow, they seemed to get less boring. Nick still missed the feel of something tangible under his hands, something he could see and feel and hear as he fixed it and got the job done. But he’d been back to visit Joe and the shop a couple of times, and had talked with his old mentor about his ideas for making Coste cars more affordable. Joe had been a better sounding board than any of the stuffy suits at Coste Motor Company. It just made him want to learn the language to get those suits to listen to him. If he could get good at this business stuff, he could make a difference.

Which meant paying attention in class. But that had the effect of winning some of Katayama’s approval for finally taking his station seriously. And that made the married life run smoothly. Smoothly enough. Mostly, Nick and Katayama stayed out of each other’s way. They talked over dinner—when they took the meal together, which wasn’t too common an occurrence since they could prepare their own food from the prepped meals their chef—Nick couldn’t believe he honest to god had a _chef—_ prepared for them at their own leisure. But when their leisures intertwined or one of them was tasked with making dinner for the both of them, they would talk primarily of business dealings and Nick’s classes and Katayama’s progress—or lack thereof—with Charles Kane.

All these things added up to a fair amount of comfort, a feeling of settling into things really and truly. And that was what was unsettling to Nick. How normal it felt to wake up in the morning and climb out of a bed with another body in it, to dance around the bathroom sink in a flurry of brushing teeth and combing hair and shaving in a morning routine he’d developed with a man he hadn’t been able to stand when they’d first met two and a half years ago, _or_ when they’d become reacquainted—or truly acquainted for the first time—almost five months ago. But ever since Charles’ birthday party, they’d come to an understanding. Both of them could be trusted to uphold their end of a bargain, whether it be about pajamas or fidelity.

“You’re with me today,” Katayama said, clearing his breakfast plate into the dishwasher and finishing off a noxious green protein shake.

“Am I?” Nick asked, checking his phone for messages from Robert.

“Robert says you’ve improved a lot in your tact and business sense since the last time he sent you with me to an important meeting and asked me to consider bringing you along to this one. I agreed. Don’t make me regret it.”

“Yeah, okay,” Nick said, unable to stop the small burst of excitement at the prospect of getting out into the field. Or, in this case, the conference room. “What’s the meeting about?”

“It’s a meeting between our companies, actually. We’re relooking at the contract between us—the companies—to make sure everything is still to taste and go over other such housekeeping.”

“Cool!” Nick said. Katayama eyed him like he didn’t believe Nick genuinely thought so. But Nick did. He knew a thing or two about the Katayama-Coste contract, seeing as he’d studied it with Robert. That was probably why Robert had suggested Katayama let him tag along to this meeting.

Nick recognized most of the Coste company people in the room, had talked to or eaten regularly with a number of them. He caught up with them before the meeting got underway. Then he shut up and let Katayama do his thing. But when one of the Katayama employees voiced concern over a clause in the current contract, it was Nick who stepped in with an answer that smoothed the wrinkle in the man’s brow. Nick hadn’t understood that part, either. He’d asked Robert about it and now had the rationale and explanation behind the wording that the employee had thought ominously phrased.

"You did well today,” Katayama admitted when the meeting was over and they were left alone in the conference room, collecting up papers and pushing in chairs.

“Yeah?"

"Almost like a real adult."

“Thank you," Nick grinned, feeling pleased with himself.

"Although," _and here we go,_ "I do wish you'd get a more appropriate haircut."

"But with all this wealth and power, no one can tell me it’s terrible. You don't count," he said as Katayama opened his mouth to tell him his hair was terrible. "I think it's starting a bit of a trend. Did you see Jeffers' hair? It looked a little shorter 'round the sides and back."

"I sincerely hope it isn't catching on. It's a truly atrocious style and no one else could pull it off."

"No one else?" Nick asked. "You're implying that I _can_ pull it off."

"I'll thank you not to put words in my mouth."

"But I’m so good at it!"

“I suppose you have to be good at _something,”_ Katayama said dryly. “Otherwise, it wouldn’t be fair, you’ve got nothing else going for you.”

“Ha!” Nick exclaimed, knocking his elbow lightly against Katayama’s arm with a grin. “You’re the fool who married me, so what does that say about your taste?”

“Nothing good, I’m afraid.” The tiniest twitch of his mouth gave away the smile Katayama almost delivered the insult with.

“So, how’re the Kanes?”

“Aiden misses you.”

Nick laughed and that tiny smile of Katayama’s finally broke through.

“I don’t think he even _likes_ me,” Nick said as they collected their briefcases—Nick always felt the need to make fun of himself for owning one—and retreated to Katayama’s office. Nick was to spend the day shadowing him, which promised to be a boring day indeed.

“Aiden doesn’t like most the people he pursues. I told you, he enjoys causing chaos.”

“I wish he’d cause it with someone else,” Nick grumbled. He’d been issued multiple invitations to all sorts of events and had been cornered by Aiden several times at the office, but he’d managed to avoid being dragged to any of the offered ‘dates.’ But, despite his firm and repeated rejections, Aiden kept trying. Rather half-heartedly, admittedly, as if Nick was a trusty puzzle to return to when newer games lost his interest. “And he wasn’t the Kane I was really asking about.”

“I know. Charles is still proving difficult. But when I suggested that we would be unable to come to an agreement and should, therefore, stop wasting each other’s time, he disagreed.”

“So he wants to come to an agreement, just not the one you’re pushing for.”

“It would seem so.”

“Which means he’s got an idea about how to get whatever agreement he wants out of you. If he’s not ready to call it quits yet.”

“But he hasn’t offered any alternate route and is very unwilling to negotiate. It’s—,” Katayama sighed, “frustrating.”

“Exhausting, too, I bet,” Nick said quietly, watching Katayama rub at his temples.

“Such is the nature of this work.”

“I guess. But it doesn’t have to be exhausting all the time. Come on, let’s go grab lunch and take a break.”

* * *

Laying in bed that night, Nick kept thinking about what Katayama had said about Charles. There was something suspicious about the Kanes.

“I think,” Nick said to the ceiling, “that he’s got something else at play.”

Katayama shifted, the blankets rustling and the lump of his form, just visible over the duck pillow, seemed to turn toward him. Katayama never faced inward on the bed. Ever.

“Charles?” Katayama asked, his voice so close that he _must_ be facing this way. Nick turned too.

“Yeah. If he’s not willing to quit the deal but he’s not negotiating with you…that sounds like he’s stalling for time. Like he thinks something will happen that’ll make you more likely to agree to his terms as are.”

Katayama paused before answering.

“An interesting theory. But that brings up the question of what he thinks will change.”

“No clue.”

Katayama sighed again and Nick could hear him start to turn away.

“I see you pouring over your notes and proposals for the Kane deal all the time, you know,” Nick mused.

“Let me guess, you think I should ease up.”

“No, I think you’re—I mean, this is your first business deal without a mentor, right? It’s a big deal and a lot of pressure and I know you want to land this deal and do it perfectly and, just…I know it’s a lot of work. And I think you’re kind of amazing for all the work you do and for sticking with your convictions, despite the pressure to close this deal.”

“You’re only saying that because you think it will help you with your insane idea of making your cars and my energy more affordable.”

“Hey, I didn’t think you listened,” Nick said, yawning. “No, really, you’re…”

“What?” Katayama asked. “What am I?”

“A champion.”

Nick was falling into sleep now but he didn’t feel the blankets tug or the mattress shift. He thought that, for once, Katayama fell asleep facing their little wall of fluff and ducks, same as Nick.


	26. Chapter 26

As Seiji was already at Coste Headquarters for work, he decided he’d better see if Nicholas wanted to get lunch. Appearances’ sake demanded some level of camaraderie between them, and going out to eat during lunch hour with Nicholas was hardly the worst thing appearances’ sakes had required of him.

“Katayama,” Nicholas said with evident surprise, coming out of his office before Seiji had even had a chance to knock on the door. “I was just headed out for lunch. Why are you here?”

“My input was needed on the Jenkins deal.”

“Gotcha,” Nicholas nodded. There was a pause during which Seiji tried to find the words to propose lunch. “Did you want to…?”

“Yes,” Seiji answered, relieved to not have to find the words at all. It felt juvenile to him to ask someone to lunch, like a middle schooler asking out their first date. Seiji hadn’t dated in middle school but he didn’t want his invitation to be misconstrued as a date, particularly of the middle school variety. “Somewhere with actual food, please.” Seiji said it with contempt but Nicholas clearly missed the memo. At the beginnings of Nicholas’s smile and what Seiji was sure would shape up to be a quip about his good manners, Seiji felt the need to explain, “You consume far too much fat and grease for your own good.”

“No policing diets, remember?” Nicholas sang. Seiji thought it was said in jest and not as a serious reminder of the contract’s verdict. “I’m sure we can find something.”

Seiji nodded and stepped back to allow Nicholas out of his office. He noticed that someone lurked in another doorway to a different office. Nicholas didn’t seem to notice—or, if he’d seen Jesse, he ignored his presence. Seiji had never been good at ignoring Jesse’s presence and he didn’t like that it was here, watching him and Nicholas make lunch plans.

“Eugene’s birthday is on Sunday, do you want to come?”

“Am I expected to?” Seiji’s question was answered with a laugh.

“No, you don’t have to. But Eugene told me to bring you along—‘if you can convince the poor dude to spend more time with you than he already has to,’ I think was the way he phrased it.”

“Will there be dancing?”

Another laugh.

“Maybe. You never know. But all clothes will stay on if you come, I promise.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Huh?”

“You said all clothes will stay on _if_ I come. So what happens if I don’t come?”

Nicholas didn’t laugh this time, but he looked like he wanted to. His eyes held humor in them and his mouth was a wide grin as his shoulders sloped up and down. _Who knows?_ he seemed to say.

A door slammed behind Seiji. He almost jumped at the sudden and loud sound of it.

“Some of us have busy schedules,” a sharp voice lashed as a sharp shoulder pushed between Seiji and Nicholas. Jesse strode purposefully and spitefully to the elevator, then disappeared into it with a jab at the call button.

“Dunno why he’s in such a hurry,” Nicholas muttered. “It’s not like he’s keeping anyone waiting.”

“How do you know?”

“Have you met him? Who’d be asking _that_ out for lunch?”

“A lot of people like Jesse quite a lot.”

“They’ve got shit taste, then. Anyway, are you coming?”

“To Eugene’s party?”

“Yeah.”

“I suppose I’d better.”

* * *

Nicholas was greeted with an ambush almost as soon as they got out of Seiji’s car. They’d made very little progress onto the field of the small park, tucked at the base of grassy hills, before three figures barreled into him in something that might have been a hug but was indistinguishable from an attack.

Nicholas laughed delightedly.

“Aren’t we all too old for this?” he asked. Seiji knew better than to believe _Nicholas_ thought so.

“Told you the whole crew misses you,” Eugene’s bellowing voice called as the man himself strolled up and fit his arms around the mesh of bodies. Amazingly, with a heave, he managed to lift the whole bundle off the ground for just a moment—those he couldn’t reach around were so tightly held together, they came with anyway. Then they broke apart with laughter and pats on the backs and accusations of Nicholas’s neglect.

They were shuttled to the rest of the gathered people—Bobby and Dante included—at the picnic tables brimming with food. On their way, Seiji was presented with a barrage of rapid-fire introductions. He didn’t catch most the names, but he knew the brothers were Junior, Fritz, and Marcus. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to address any of them singularly. He wasn’t at all sure which was which.

“It’s good to finally meet you,” Eugene’s mother, who’d introduced herself as Elizabeth, said kindly as she clasped Seiji’s hand. “We’ve heard so much about you from Nick.”

“Have you?” Seiji asked, glancing at his husband. He was surprised that Nicholas talked of him.

“Oh, yes,” said a girl with choppy hair pulled up in a spiky bun to reveal a pattern of jagged lines shaved into hair cut as close to the skull as Nicholas’s was, words delivered with a snorted sort of laugh. Sarcasm, Seiji was pretty sure. Irony of some variety, at the very least. “We’ve been hearing about you for _years_ , Katayama. Nick’s got lots of colorful ways to curse your name.”

“Luna,” Elizabeth chided sharply.

“Are you _trying_ to put me in the doghouse?” Nicholas asked.

“Yes, actually,” Luna smiled sweetly.

“Don’t you have a brother to go torment somewhere?” Nick said, scanning the crowd. “Look, there’s Junior. Looks like he’s trying to impress one of Eugene’s college friends. That’s gotta be fun waiting to happen, don’t you think?”

Luna considered, looking to where Nicholas was pointing.

“I’m telling him you threw him under the bus,” she said in parting. Nicholas shook his head fondly as he watched her go.

“Gene’s sister,” he told Seiji.

“Ah,” Seiji said, nodding.

“She’s got a unique sense of humor,” Elizabeth explained. “But she left out all the little ways Nick talks about you every time we see him, curse-free.”

Seiji didn’t know how to tell this woman that he found that as uncomfortable to contemplate as he found the idea of Nicholas cursing his name for more than two years distasteful. But it seemed he didn’t have to. She smiled and left the topic.

“That’s a very exciting car you’ve got,” she said instead. Seiji nodded, looking briefly to his car with Elizabeth.

“I’m quite fond of it.”

“It’s perfect weather for a car like that. I’ll bet you keep the hood down all summer long.”

“When I can,” Seiji agreed.

“Not as much as he’d like,” Nicholas, for some reason, felt the need to chime in. Seiji pursed his lips. It was true that he couldn’t often actually let the wind play chaos through his hair or displace his clothes, but he didn’t think it was necessary to acknowledge. His frown, however, was not for the acknowledgment. There was something else. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on…

 _He noticed,_ Seiji realized. _He noticed that I like having the hood down and that I’d like to keep it down all summer if I could._

“I love the color,” Elizabeth continued. “Yellow is my favorite color. Is it yours too?”

“Ah, no.” The way she smiled at him made Seiji feel like there was something more he should say. So he tried, “My favorite color is blue.”

She nodded, so he must have said it right.

“Like your pajamas,” Nicholas declared proudly. Seiji wished he wouldn’t. He heard Eugene’s laugh at this before he felt the heavy hand on his shoulder, the other one a twin on Nicholas’s.

“Nick, is the only thing you notice about your man what he wears to bed? What color are his sleep socks?”

“They’re all white,” Nicholas answered, persisting in speaking as Eugene guffawed, voice rising over the noise. “You don’t understand, Eugene, he’s got like ten sets of the _exact_ same pajamas and all his sleep socks are whiter than snow—it’s ridiculous. _He’s_ the one you should be laughing at!”

“You and your pajama drama,” Eugene shook his head. “Always good for a laugh. Come and play a game of kickball with us, we need more players.”

Seiji let Eugene guide him over to the amassing game but declined from playing, despite Nicholas’s attempts to make him. Nicholas certainly seemed to enjoy the childish game. In fact, everyone had their fun running around and mucking up their shoes and pants as they tramped and slid around the field and the hasty bases of jackets that denoted the roughly square shape of the playing field. Much like children, they didn’t cease their playing until Elizabeth called for cake.

“You should smash this in Nick’s face,” Eugene said, handing Seiji a slice of it. “Revenge,” he continued with a wink.

“Have mercy,” Nicholas pled, hands up in surrender when Seiji looked at him. But he wasn’t considering it. Such a thing would have been childish and petty.

He allowed Nicholas to pull him down into the grass and politely ate his cake. Eventually, Eugene and his slew of siblings settled down next to them.

“Lola’s bemoaning her lack of grandchildren again,” Luna said, dropping into place next to Eugene. “Thought I’d warn you to avoid her until she’s worked her way through the routine. Happy birthday.”

“Thanks, Lunes.” Eugene shook his head. “I’m only twenty-three, I don’t know what she expects.”

“Bet she’d settle for a girlfriend.”

“Luna! Lola’s already married and Lolo’s not dead yet. I don’t think she needs a girlfriend.”

The whole circle of them laughed 

“It’s been ages since you’ve brought someone ‘round,” one of the boys said.

“No one’s been worth bringing around in ages,” Eugene shrugged after a pause.

“Do you even still want to get married? You used to say you wanted to, but it doesn’t seem like you’re trying for it lately.”

“Eventually I do. Not all of us get fast-tracked to the married life with gorgeous husbands, though. If I want a husband, I’ve got to go catch one the hard way.”

Seiji was relatively sure he was the ‘gorgeous husband’ Eugene had referenced and he wasn’t sure what to do with it. Eugene said things like that sometimes—compliments to him delivered through teasing barbs at Nicholas. It wasn’t like how Jesse gave compliments. They never felt like Eugene was trying to get anything out of anyone but a smile or a laugh. He got them now, laughs and smiles both.

“What’s it like having a husband?” another boy asked, this one flat on his back and cake on his chest. Seiji was fairly certain it was a choking hazard to eat like that.

“It’s pretty cool,” Nicholas said, same as he might have if he’d been asked about work or new shoes or any other number of mundane things.

“Is Nick good at it?” the boy asked, head flopping over to look at Seiji.

“Good at what?” Seiji asked cautiously.

“At being a husband.”

“He’s…adequate.”


	27. Chapter 27

Nicholas wasn’t Seiji’s ideal husband. Seiji didn’t have an ideal husband, unless ‘no husband’ qualified as an ideal one. He’d dreaded wedding Jesse but had known it was his duty to wed him anyway, which had left no room to consider what Seiji would look for in a spouse if he were _allowed_ to look for one. But there were worse men by far to be married to than Nicholas.

Nicholas was loud and rambunctious and even though Seiji knew he was putting in the effort required of him to be neat, Nicholas was terrible at making the bed, had a way of splashing water all over the bathroom and the kitchen if he was on dish duty, couldn’t ever seem to get every corner of shirt or pants or boxers into the hamper, and left his shoes in a terrible heap at the door. Seiji was sure his ideal husband would be more naturally inclined to tidiness. But, even so, being married to Nicholas was close to not being married at all. Which was agreeable.

Nicholas didn’t demand physical attention of any sort from Seiji, though he’d taken to knocking a shoulder or elbow or the back of knuckles against Seiji, clapping a hand on his shoulder, or sitting too carelessly and too close to him. Small things like that weren’t worth kicking a fuss up about so Seiji let Nicholas continue with his oddly physical way of existing in a space with another person. And they existed in the same space a lot. But it was less like having a husband and more like having a roommate. A couple of nights, Nicholas had brought home Bobby and they’d slept in a guest room together like kids at a sleepover. That certainly wasn’t husband-like behavior.

So, in a way, Nicholas came close to Seiji’s ideal husband. If he couldn’t have no spouse at all, having a spouse that acted like a messy roommate wasn’t so bad.

“Are we fending for ourselves tonight?” Nicholas asked, head stuck in the fridge.

“Hmm?” Seiji looked up from his newspaper, letting the peripheral of Nicholas in the kitchen become the focus. “Yes, you ate the last of the leftovers for lunch, remember?” But, of course, it was Seiji who was on dinner duty tonight. He glanced at his watch. Still ten minutes before he had to start. “I found a recipe for portobello mushroom burgers—,”

“Stop right there,” Nicholas said, pulling his nose from the fridge just to wrinkle it at Seiji. “Why would you take the best part of the burger out of the burger and replace it with a giant mushroom? I want pizza.”

“I’m not going out to dinner for pizza, Nicholas. If you want to go out, why can’t you pick a respectable restaurant?”

“Because I’m not allowed in respectable places,” Nicholas reminded him, sticking out his tongue.

“Ah, yes. I remember why I made that rule now. I’m making mushroom burgers. If you don’t like that, you are free to dine out with your friends in a greasy diner.”

“Eugene’s busy a lot these days,” Nicholas complained. “And Bobby already went to lunch with me.”

“How lucky that he’s able to hold to a schedule of a maximum of one meal with you a day. If only I could be so fortunate.”

“Dick.” Nicholas glanced back at the fridge, then closed it. “I’m gonna go out, I’ll be back soon.”

“Very well,” Seiji said with little concern, returning his attention to his newspaper as Nicholas trundled to the front door and started hopping around to get his shoes on. 

“Don’t,” Nicholas said, poking back around the entryway to point at Seiji, “make your weird mushroom thing.”

Seiji listened to the door fall shut and Nicholas’s car pull out of the driveway. With only himself to worry about feeding, Seiji decided to have a late dinner, so he let his ten minutes pass by, and it was only after another twenty that he stood and located his apron and put it on. It was one of his more favorite wedding gifts, as he used it so often, though the quilted design of blue flowers wasn’t one he would have picked for himself. He’d have opted for something more plain than the careful quilting and detailed pattern of the expertly sewn apron, but he had it now so there was no reason to buy a new one.

Seiji started collecting the things he’d purchased this afternoon for dinner. He’d gotten enough to make food for both him and Nicholas but he wasn’t surprised that Nicholas had trotted off somewhere else to eat something else with someone else. Seiji was no stranger to meals eaten in solitude.

The door clattered open and the house seemed to erupt with noise, though it was only Nicholas returning home. He managed to trail a cacophony behind him always. Tonight, there was the bang of the door against the wall—Seiji scowled, Nicholas had already put a dent in the wall and he was well on his way to creating a hole—the colorful language of Nicholas’s struggle to get off his shoes, which filed the house with thudding as Nicholas stumbled and hopped and lost his balance, and the rustle of plastic bags. Seiji had told Nicholas countless times to bring the reusable canvas bags when he went shopping but did Nicholas ever listen? No.

“Did you listen?” Nicholas asked. “I told you not to make your mush-burgers.”

“It’s my turn to make dinner,” Seiji repeated tightly, irritated that Nicholas was still complaining.

“You can’t even make normal things taste very good, sugar, you really shouldn’t try weird shit.”

“Don’t call me sugar. And if you don’t want to eat what I make, _you_ can make dinner.”

“I was planning on it.” Nicholas’s grin was wide on his face when he popped into the kitchen, shoeless and with heavily loaded bags all up one arm. “We’re making pizza.”

“We’re what?”

Nicholas hauled the bags onto the table and started unpacking. Cheese and pepperonis and tomato paste and spices and flour—why flour? They already had flour—and yeast and two large round pans and a rolling pin. Seiji stared in disbelief at the spoils of his husband’s shopping trip. Then Nicholas rolled up his sleeves and started washing the pans and the rolling pin, already managing to splash Seiji with water.

“Put your burger stuff away,” Nicholas told him. “Tonight’s a pizza night.”

“I had a plan.”

“I changed it.”

Seiji sighed but cleared the counter of all mushroom-related items. Nicholas was not always an easy force to stop once he’d started on something and, tonight, Seiji decided he cared more about peace and quiet than the principle of sticking to his plan over Nicholas’s.

Nicholas handed the first pan to Seiji and he dried it, then the next, then the pin. He put one pan away. Why Nicholas had felt the need to get two, he didn’t know.

“I like that apron,” Nicholas said, scrubbing his hands dry and swiping the cloth haphazardly around the edge of the sink.

“You should,” Seiji said, striding to the hook it was kept on inside the pantry door. “It’s your friend that made it. And he made you a matching one.” Seiji retrieved the apron adorned in red flowers from the hook next to his—currently vacant—one and handed it to Nicholas. He put it on without complaint, though Seiji knew he rarely wore it himself when preparing food.

“Yeah, Bobby’s amazing. But I meant that I like that apron on you. You look…pretty,” Nicholas shrugged.

“I don’t wear it to be pretty,” Seiji said flatly, ignoring Nicholas’s attempt to rile him. Jesse had done the same, extravagant pet names and compliments falling easily from curled lips.

“You never do anything to be pretty,” Nicholas snorted. “And yet…”

Seiji didn’t acknowledge Nicholas’s trailing words either. Instead, he checked the recipe Nicholas had pulled up and efficiently started adding dry ingredients to a bowl he’d just pulled down.

The dough didn’t take long to prepare, but Seiji let Nicholas deal with the mixing. He didn’t want to get sticky dough on his hands. While it rose, Seiji composed a work email on his phone and Nicholas messed around with the sleek tabletop radio that lived in the kitchen but had never been used. He found a station he deemed satisfactory and then the dough was ready to be kneaded.

“Like this,” Nicholas said, demonstrating when Seiji didn’t touch the hunk of dough Nicholas had plopped in front of him on the floured counter. As if not knowing how to do it was what was keeping Seiji from trying.

“I’m not interested in kneading the dough,” Seiji informed him. “But you seem to enjoy it, so go right ahead.”

Nicholas laughed and shook his head.

“Nuh-uh. This is your dinner night. We’re making the pizza together. You’ve gotta put some love into the dough too.”

“You’re the one who wanted to make pizza.”

“Come on, sugar—,”

“I told you not to call me that.”

“Fine, then. Come on, Katayama.” That wasn’t much better. A terrible and unmeant endearment or a chastisement, those were Seiji’s options of names from his husband. “It’s not even sticky anymore, the water’s all mixed in.”

Seiji gave in and took position in front of the dough, just to get it done with. But Nicholas had apparently made pizza before and he took issue with the way Seiji kneaded the dough.

“No,” he said, arms slipping around Seiji and chest notching against his back. Seiji froze, going rigid as Nicholas’s hands covered his, guided them into the dough. “Like this.”

Seiji didn’t have much choice but to loosen up and let Nicholas guide him into a rhythm.

“Great!” Nicholas said, pulling away and clearing his throat. “You’ve got it.”

“I think it’s been kneaded enough,” Seiji said, retracting his hands too.

Nicholas nodded seriously, then cracked his fingers in a way Seiji found distasteful. He took up the rolling pin and stared down the dough. Seiji rolled his eyes at the theatrics but, as Nicholas started to work at the dough with his pin, Seiji saw that its elasticity made it hard to roll at all, much less into the desired shape.

“Give me that,” Seiji said, taking the pin after several minutes of watching Nicholas struggle. But Seiji wasn’t able to make it any more circular than Nicholas had managed. They stared at their squarish pizza together.

“Well,” Nicholas said, “this is an unfortunate state of asquares.”

Seiji turned his frown from the pizza to Nicholas, whose face broke from its solemn expression.

“That was terrible.”

“You just don’t understand my humor. It’s too high-brow for you.”

“I’m sure.”

“Anyway, let’s throw this on the pan and call it good. Square pizza is as good as circular pizza is.”

Once their pizza was in the oven, half cheese, half pepperoni, Seiji returned to his email and Nicholas turned up the radio.

“Oh!” he exclaimed. “I love this song!”

Seiji paused in his typing to listen. He didn’t recognize the song but it _sounded_ like something Nicholas might enjoy. But, in honesty, Nicholas was not discerning in his music taste. He liked to put his entire music library on shuffle and the resulting clash of songs was always…interesting. And sometimes headache-inducing.

“It’s great for salsa.”

That made Seiji look up from his phone. “How would you know?”

“Because I’ve danced to it, duh.”

“You can dance?”

“A little,” Nicholas nodded.

“Why didn’t you tell me? We could have danced at our wedding.”

Nicholas laughed. He was in a laughing mood tonight. Seiji narrowed his eyes.

“You’re pulling my leg,” he said. “You don’t actually know how to dance.”

“I do,” Nicholas insisted. “But only salsa, really.”

Seiji gave a derisive snort. “Yes, of course, a mechanic who knows how to salsa.”

“Yep, that’s me,” Nicholas confirmed, coming to Seiji and plucking the phone from his hands.

“What are you doing?”

Nicholas positioned a hand at Seiji’s waist and took his hand after discarding his phone to the counter.

“Proving to you that I know how to dance. Do you?”

“I—,”

Nicholas was already moving, tugging Seiji clumsily along. Seiji detested being jerked around like a rag doll and considered yanking out of Nicholas’s grasp entirely. But, as a matter of fact, he _did_ know how to dance, if only the very basics. Salsa wasn’t the style he and Jesse had planned to dance at their wedding and so Seiji’s knowledge of it was rudimentary.

Seiji placed his hand at Nicholas’s shoulder and relied on him to lead. It wasn’t a great show of skill on his part, but Nicholas was right—he did seem to know what he was doing. He grinned the entire time the song played but when it faded into a new song—a softer, slower song—neither of them let go. Seiji was still caught up in the whirl of half-remembered dance steps and his heart was kicked up a notch from the fast and unprompted exertion and Nicholas was still smiling at him, eyes gleaming with happy laughter and Seiji didn’t let go.

“I like this song,” Seiji found himself saying. Nicholas’s smile slipped away and the laughter in his eyes turned to an examination, a curious and slightly surprised expression.

“I like it too,” he said quietly. And then he was moving again. Not in the quick tempo of a salsa, not even in any real dance. Just in a slow sway.

Nicholas lifted Seiji’s right hand above their heads, clearly prompting him to duck under it. Seiji didn’t. He wouldn’t. But then he was anyway, rolling his eyes and twisting around in a juvenile mockery of real dance. When he was facing Nicholas again, he was brought in close. There was something magnetic about Nicholas’s body, his movement.

With his head close against Nicholas’s chest, resting quietly on his shoulder, Seiji swayed to the music with his husband.

* * *

“How’s the married life?” Jesse asked, waltzing into Seiji’s office at Coste Headquarters as brazenly as he always had and sweeping a hand across Seiji’s desk, as if checking for dust.

“Fine.”

“Getting on well with your husband? Tell me, do you think of me while you’re with him?”

“Honestly, Jesse, I’ve no reason to think of you at all anymore.”

Jesse made a chiding, clicking sound. “Is he that good, then? Nicholas.”

“He’s…adequate.”

“Not as good as me.”

“Quite the contrary,” Seiji said, annoyed at Jesse’s intrusion. “I’d rather be married to him than to you.”

Something dark flashed briefly in Jesse’s blue eyes but it was gone as quickly as it had come. It occurred to Seiji that Jesse wouldn’t like to hear that his brother was preferable to him after everything Nicholas’s existence had already taken from him. But Seiji didn’t care. It was true. Nicholas left him alone for the most part. He wasn’t as helpful with work as Jesse might have been but even there, he was improving. And he never asked Seiji for things he didn’t want to give. Last night, there had been a moment when their song had come to an end and Seiji had pulled his head off his shoulder and it had felt like Nicholas might want to…but he’d let Seiji go without pushing for anything, laughing and checking up on their square pizza.

Jesse pushed Seiji’s office door closed with another _tsk._ Seiji watched him do it.

“What do you want?” Seiji asked.

“To offer you some advice,” Jesse said, falling into a chair across from Seiji. “Keep an eye on your husband.”

“Excuse me?”

Jesse fiddled idly with a paperweight. “If he keeps running around with the Kane brat, there’ll be trouble.”

The ‘Kane brat’ was several years Jesse’s senior but Seiji didn’t point that out. It was hardly the biggest worry on his mind.

“And what are you implying by that?” Seiji asked icily.

“I’m sure you have it in your contract to forbid affairs this early in your marriage. But Nicholas doesn’t have the same stakes in that contract that we do. That I did. So he doesn’t understand, does he? That a breach of it could lead to our entire partnership crumbling.”

“Nicholas is not having an affair,” Seiji said. For a moment, he considered that Jesse had seen something—that Jesse knew something he didn’t. But Nicholas had been earnest on this front from the very start. _I’m not a cheater._ And Seiji believed him. Believed him because Nicholas, more than anyone, would understand the huge ramifications an affair could have.

“There’re rumors…”

“What rumors?” Seiji hadn’t been informed of any rumors, and his public relations team really ought to have informed him of any romantic rumors involving his husband.

“Kane wants to split up Coste Motor and Katayama Energy.”

“What?” That wasn’t the sort of rumor he had expected to hear.

“It’s very hush-hush. I’m not supposed to be telling you, but it’s in my best interest that you keep your husband in line. Kane has wanted to monopolize your energy for his yachts for years and he’s sniffed out a weakness in my dear brother. If he can wedge his son between you two in marriage, he could create a chasm between your two companies, break you up—in matters of business and the heart. Nicholas is new to this, he’s a bastard of my father, and he was not meant to inherit the company. Or your hand in marriage. Exploiting that could leverage you away from him…and toward Kane Industries.”

“Is that why Aiden’s been so relentless in his pursuit?”

“Likely so,” Jesse said. “I mean, what other reason _is_ there to go after someone like Nicholas? He’s—,”

“My husband,” Seiji said firmly. “And I won’t tolerate your petty insults of him.”

“Oh, what’s this?” Jesse asked, eyes alight with interest. “Do you actually like him?”

“Whether I like him or not isn’t the point. The point is that he’s my husband and to insult him is to insult me. And I do not take kindly to insults. Thank you for your advice, Jesse. Now get out of my office.”

Jesse stared at him, then he was standing up fluidly, like he’d grown bored and had meant to leave all on his own. He put down the paperweight but knocked over a picture frame in the process. Seiji glared but said nothing, wanting Jesse gone as quickly as possible.

“I just hope your husband is as wonderful and faithful as you seem to think. If he’s not, it could mean disaster. Be on the watch for Kane. Both father and son. And give my brother my love.”

Seiji waited until Jesse was gone to pick up the frame he’d knocked over. It was broken, a crack splitting the glass. Jesse had done it on purpose. Seiji carefully removed the photo he’d kept on his desk since the pictures from his honeymoon had come in. There was only one that wasn’t of scenery and views and cafes. This picture, with Nicholas’s lips pressed to his cheek and his arm around him. It had seemed an appropriate thing to keep in the office. A personal touch for anyone that cared to look. Jesse must have cared to look and he must not have cared for what he’d seen.

Sighing, Seiji tucked the photo in between pages of his journal to keep it from bending before he could replace the frame. They seemed like a reasonably happy young couple in the picture. And they were reasonably happy in reality too. Not a couple, not in a real way. But they got along well enough, didn’t they? Especially these last months. Especially last night. Whatever trouble was brewing with the Kanes, it made Seiji uneasy to consider it disrupting the relative peace he’d found with Nicholas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sometimes you gotta write 3k soley ~~ok maybe not _soley_~~ because you need to tell a terrible pun
> 
> anyone else here completely and utterly soft for slow dancing in the kitchen? if you are, then you will absolutely fucking melt at [Thestarminstrel’s](https://thestarminstrel.tumblr.com/) gorgeous and sweet and _perfect_ depiction of Seiji and Nick dancing to their song. [ go check it out here](https://thestarminstrel.tumblr.com/post/635866423475994625/i-like-this-song-seiji-found-himself) and give her some love for drawing this masterpiece for us to enjoy! 💜


	28. Chapter 28

“Don’t think you can get away with that just because it’s your birthday,” Katayama warned.

“Get away with what?” Nick asked.

“That outfit. What happened to the sleeves of that poor shirt?”

Nick shrugged. “I ripped them off.”

“Why would you—actually, never mind. I’m sure it boils down to you being a moron and an imbecile. But we’re going to a high-end restaurant tonight, not an arm-wrestling match, so you’ll have to change.”

“Whatever you say, dear,” Nick rolled his eyes. But at least Katayama hadn’t forbidden him from wearing jeans, so Nick just pulled the black cable knit sweater Bobby had given him today on over his sleeveless shirt. Katayama looked mildly horrified at the lazy fix but it really was _mild_ horror; he didn’t even voice his disgust.

“Are you ready? We’re already late.”

“It’s my birthday dinner, Jesse and Robert can wait on me tonight.”

Nick turned back last minute to grab another gift he’d received today and fastened it on his wrist. It was a fine silver watch. A match to the one Katayama wore but with the initials _N.K._ engraved on the back. N.K. Nicholas Katayama. Six months ago, Nicholas Cox had become Nicholas Katayama. It still fucked him up on official documents all the time. Like trying to write the year as _’22_ instead of _’23_ for the first three months of this year.

Katayama noticed the watch but didn’t comment on it, only ushered Nick out the door and into his car. Katayama liked to drive with the top down, Nick knew he did because whenever he went on drives—aimless things that seemed to be more about the driving than actually going anywhere—he always had the top down. But that was when he didn’t have anywhere to be or anyone to impress. Tonight, they were having dinner at a fancy restaurant with Nick’s family, so the top stayed up.

Nick’s family. Six months ago, Nicholas Cox had become Nicholas Katayama instead of Nicholas Coste. Sharing Katayama’s last name felt more right than taking his father’s name. His family name. But the Costes didn’t really feel like his family. He and Jesse didn’t get along. At least, they wouldn’t if they ever talked. They didn’t, but Jesse hated Nick and Nick couldn’t blame him. Nick had hated Jesse all his life for getting it all, hadn’t he? It was only fair that Jesse got to hate Nick now when Nick was the one with everything. Even though Nick had never asked for any of it. Jesse hadn’t asked for any of it either. Neither of them could help the circumstances of their birth. But that didn’t make love run easy between them. Robert wasn’t awful, Nick supposed. He was a good mentor, a kind enough man. But saying that he and Jesse and Nick were a family? They weren’t the family Nick usually spent his birthdays with.

When he was fifteen, Nick had met Eugene because of his lumbering car. Nick didn’t think Eugene had ever met someone he hadn’t befriended and Nick had been no exception. Nick had gotten on well with Eugene and, after he’d helped fix up the sewing machine Eugene had brought to him, saying it was a friend’s favorite thing in the world but had stopped working, Nick had found himself with another friend from Eugene’s boys’ school. Bobby had gotten Nick flowers and a thank you card and shyly presented him with both of them the day after Nick had returned the sewing machine to Eugene in working condition. Nick hadn’t expected Eugene’s friend to come thank him personally and had expected even less to hit it off with the guy as naturally as he had hit it off with Eugene.

By his next birthday, Nick had had a family of sorts to spend it with. He’d had Eugene and Bobby, and he’d had Dante, too, by virtue of having Bobby. And this was the first birthday since his sixteenth that he’d spent without them. They _had_ had lunch, at least. Maybe next year, Nick would ask Robert if they could come to dinner too.

“Remember your manners,” Katayama said as they parked. Katayama straightened his silver tie pin as they walked.

“I’m gonna put my feet on the table and eat my food directly off the plate, no utensils or anything. And _then_ I think I’ll stand on the table and do a little birthday jig. That sound good?”

“No, but listen and you’ll hear something that does.”

Nick waited but Katayama didn’t say anything else.

“What?” he finally gave in and asked.

“Silence. That’s my favorite sound, particularly when we’re together.”

“Hey! It’s my birthday, you have to be nice to me!” Nick laughed and hip-checked his husband. Katayama stumbled sideways and Nick caught his elbow, steadying him sheepishly. He hadn’t actually been trying to get his husband run over by pushing him into the street.

“Haven’t I been nice to you today?” Katayama asked, tugging his sleeve free of any wrinkles Nick’s assault and subsequent rescue might have put on it. “I didn’t make you change into a proper undershirt to wear with that sweater, did I? And I didn’t point out that our contract states that you will put in an effort to be on time—,”

“But that’s with you! Making Robert and Jesse wait doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

“Actually, I think you’ll find in the contract that the wording indicates—,”

“So sue me,” Nick challenged cheerily.

“No, I won’t. It’s your birthday.”

“You’re a real sweetheart,” Nick said sarcastically, but he was smiling. Katayama _had_ been a little less naggy than usual today, now that he thought about it. And he thought it was pretty sweet that Katayama had put effort into not nagging him so much on his birthday.

He held the door open for Katayama and the two of them were led onto the floor by a hostess to find the others.

It wasn’t hard to find them. Robert and Jesse were older and younger versions of each other, both with blond hair and blue eyes only a shade away from the other’s, both tall and with a way of holding that height to command a room. And, right now, they were commanding _this_ room. They were both standing, chairs pushed out haphazardly behind them and blue eyes set furiously on each other. With another couple of unsure steps toward them, Nick was assaulted with the whip-crack of Jesse’s voice.

“Why not?” he demanded of his father fiercely. “Were you planning to auction me off to someone else? I should warn you, I’m ruined goods now, Father, I went and got myself fucked the first chance I got, so who of your business associates would have me?”

Nick and Katayama froze, staring at Jesse with expressions as shocked as Robert’s. The people close enough to have overheard that declaration were staring openly, manners be damned. Jesse’s chest was heaving hard, but his eyes were as fierce as his voice had been. In another instant, he was swinging his coat off the back of his chair and over his shoulders.

“Jesse!” Robert boomed, aghast.

“And, actually,” Jesse said proudly, “I’ve got plans to do much the same tonight.”

With that, Jesse strode away from Robert, brushing past Nick and Katayama without looking at them. He left an uncomfortable silence in his wake. Robert was completely red from some mixture of fury and embarrassment.

“Should we…?” Nick asked, meaning to ask if they should leave, go somewhere else. But Robert heard and misunderstood, nodding and gesturing down at the table.

“Yes,” he said. “Let’s eat. Nicholas, how’s your twenty-first treating you?”

“Uh,” Nick said, glancing over his shoulder in the direction his brother had just stormed. But Katayama nudged him into a seat and gave him a look that warned him not to make more of a scene than had already been made. “It’s been good.”

“Good. Good,” Robert repeated, taking a long drink of water. His color was returning to normal. “Are you ready for your first drink?” he asked with a conspiratorial wink.

“Oh, I don’t drink,” Nick said.

“Really?”

“I don’t know what my mom was like when you met her,” Nick said nonchalantly, “but she’s…a good reminder of why I never want to go down that road.”

“Ah,” Robert said, floundering briefly. “Yes, of course. That makes sense.”

Katayama flicked a warning glance at Nick but it wasn’t like he’d been trying to make things uncomfortable. He hadn’t even paused to consider that this brutal honesty might come across as a condemnation of his father.

“But I don’t mind if you drink,” Nick said. “You look like you could use one after your…uh…conversation with Jesse.”

“Nicholas!” Katayama chided through gritted teeth. Robert looked between them and then laughed.

“Clearly,” he said, “I need a stiff drink and a book on parenting.”

“Perhaps all three of you will be receiving self-help books from me for Christmas,” Katayama said idly. Nick couldn’t tell if he was intentionally trying to lighten the mood or if he was just being rude. Either way, it helped.

“What kind of self-help book am I getting?” Nick asked.

“One specializing in childhood trauma, obviously. And one about tact couldn’t hurt. And perhaps one on how to dress yourself could be beneficial as well.”

Nick and Robert laughed and conversation went on, a little off-center from the elephant in the room—or the brat no longer in it—but, overall, it was a nice birthday.


	29. Chapter 29

“Would you say that you and Seiji Katayama have a happy marriage?”

Seiji’s eyes snapped up to lock on the television he had turned to a morning talk show but hadn’t been watching. He now saw the shaky video of a street reporter, her ponytail bobbing in frame as she pushed the microphone onto the focus of the picture. Nicholas, hair tousled and black sleeves rolled up over his elbows, was standing outside of his favorite burger joint downtown. He looked sheepishly to the camera and then shrugged, rubbing at his neck.

“Yeah, I’d say we do.”

“But it’s true, isn’t it, that you met him only two weeks before your wedding? How was that?”

“Uh. Strange. At the time, I was mostly glad I wasn’t dating anyone or things could have gotten awkward.”

The reporter laughed at his terrible humor and Nicholas relaxed on the screen. Seiji felt dread prickling his skin. Why hadn’t Nicholas mentioned this to him? Hadn’t he clearly said not to engage with reporters? Maybe it would have been wiser to set up something with Lorraine Whittaker with the both of them. Then, at least, Seiji could have been there for damage control. If their first official comment to the press on their married life wasn’t perfect, it could leave the public with the wrong idea. And with Charles Kane allegedly on the lookout to wedge a divide between them, now was not the time for people to think that their marriage wasn’t strong enough to withstand hardships. That their union was weak. That Nicholas was weak.

“Speaking of prior engagements,” the reporter said, “Seiji was Jesse’s before you came into the picture. Can you shed some light on that for—,”

“He wasn’t Jesse’s,” Nicholas interrupted firmly, frown furrowing between his brows.

“Of course, legally speaking, he was always promised to you.”

“No, I mean he’s not _property._ He’s not just a thing to be promised. He might be my husband and he might have been my fiancé since I was five but he’s not a bargaining chip. And neither am I. We’re people…people who met under strange circumstances. And maybe my husband married me out of love for his family and his company instead of for me but that doesn’t make him property of Coste Motor.”

“Oh,” the woman said, stunned. “Of course. You—you said that he didn’t marry you for love. How does that feel? Would you say there’s love now or is it all strictly business?”

“Business through marriage is a strange thing. I didn’t get it before but now—I don’t know, now it’s my life, isn’t it? And I’ve got a great partner in business and in life from it so I guess I can’t complain. No, we didn’t love each other when we married, but we didn’t know each other then, did we?”

“And now?” the reporter prompted.

“And now Seiji Katayama has my heart,” Nicholas said, flashing her a smile and another sheepish shrug. “And he’ll have my head if I’m late for our afternoon meeting, so I’ve gotta go. See you around!”

The clip gave way to people talking about the insight into the great Coste-Katayama business through marriage arrangement for the first time since the wedding. But Seiji wasn’t listening. How long ago had that been taken?

_Seiji Katayama has my heart._

But Seiji didn’t, of course. Nicholas had done well enough in his impromptu interview, spouting out that line. In reality, Seiji wasn’t the sort of person to go trusting hearts to. He wouldn’t know what to do with one. And if he was given something like that, he didn’t want to think about what he’d be asked—expected—to give in return.

“I forgot about that,” Nicholas’s voice said with none of the grainy quality Seiji had most recently heard it speak with. He looked over his shoulder and found his husband lingering outside the door to his home office.

“Next time,” Seiji said, “don’t talk to the press without me.”

“They seem to like it fine,” Nicholas nodded to the television. Seiji flicked his attention back to it, catching the subtitles more than the actual spoken words. Nicholas was right, the hosts had nothing but nice things to say about the happily married young man they’d just seen defend his husband’s humanity.

“I admit you could have done worse,” Seiji conceded. Nicholas grinned.

“Thanks! Hey, I’m about to head out to hang with Eugene. Want to come?”

“And do what?”

“Hang,” Nicholas repeated.

“Yes, but what does that mean?”

“Awesome, I’ve just gotta find my jacket and we can leave.”

“I didn’t—,” Seiji began, then realized that his _yes_ might have been taken as an answer to Nicholas’s invitation rather than a dismissal of his explanation. “Very well,” he mumbled, standing. “Your leather jacket is in the coat closet. You left it on the chair last night.”

“Sorry about that,” Nicholas said, rummaging through the closet to retrieve his jacket. Seiji frowned. Sorry? Since when did Nicholas apologize for any of his terrible habits?

Nicholas tossed Seiji his keys before dashing out of the door like an excited child on his way to a playdate. Seiji shook his head down at his keys. Nicholas knew he liked to drive.

Seiji was directed to a place he recognized. After parking his car and before getting out of it, Seiji stole a look at Nicholas. Was this meant to be some sort of revenge? But Nicholas didn’t seem stormy faced. In fact, he smiled when he caught Seiji looking at him—he must have expected the suspicion.

“We’re just here to fix Eugene’s car,” Nicholas assured him, jostling his shoulder lightly before hopping out of the car. Literally.

“How many times have I told you _not_ to climb over the doors—the _doors_ are there for a reason.”

“And the top’s down for a reason too.”

“Not _that_ reason,” Seiji chided under his breath as he stepped from his car.

The shabby mechanic’s shop looked much the same as Seiji remembered it from his previous visits. It was nothing impressive—the lot was cluttered with cars and the ground was dusty, some few sad patches of grass cropping up. The storefront was chipping white paint and the roof sagged. But Nicholas beamed around at it all like it was an old friend.

Eugene pulled in not long after and the two of them got to work on fixing that door. The owner of this place, Seiji gleaned, let Nicholas use the yard and the tools—he still had a key to get into the garage. He ascertained that Sundays, when the shop was closed, were when Nicholas and Eugene would come around to bang away at the beast of Eugene’s car. Seiji watched but didn’t engage in any of the labor, though he was less successful at avoiding conversation, which he was often pulled into.

Nicholas shed his jacket and pushed up his sleeves, sweat gathering on his brow despite the late autumn chill of the day. It was impossible not to think of that day nearing three years ago when Seiji had first met the man he was bound to spend the rest of his life with. He remembered Nicholas’s dirty appearance, haphazard and grease-stained. He looked similar now, equal parts grease and sweat and scruffy hair as he worked away with Eugene’s help. But Seiji didn’t feel the same disgust and contempt he had back then. He didn’t see an anonymous scruff who spoke about things he didn’t understand. He saw a hard-working man who was spending his Sunday helping a friend. Seiji instinctively knew that Nicholas wasn’t charging Eugene for the labor. Just as he instinctively knew that Nicholas had _never_ charged Eugene for the labor.

“Nick’s pretty great, huh?”

Seiji jumped. Eugene was beside him, holding a toolkit. Seiji didn’t respond—he didn’t want Nicholas to overhear and they were close enough that he might. Not that Seiji had any interest in talking to Eugene about Nicholas under _any_ circumstances.

“And you get to take all that home,” Eugene continued.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re implying,” Seiji said quietly, trying to shut down conversation with the hard edge in his voice that always got other people to stop speaking to him.

“Uh-huh. If you ogle any harder, your eyes will fall out.”

“Gene! Are you going to come help me or are you too busy chatting up my husband?”

“Too busy chatting up your man,” Eugene said. But he returned to the car.

Seiji wasn’t ogling. There wasn’t anything _to_ ogle. It was just the way Nicholas knew his way around a car that fascinated Seiji, the movements of his hands on the tools, the shifting of muscles in his arms and across his back as he worked—

Seiji wasn’t ogling. But he _was_ curious, he decided.

“Talk me through what you’re doing,” Seiji said, stepping up to the other two. Nicholas was startled at the request. “I’m not as knowledgable about the workings of cars and how to fix the _un_ workings of cars as I ought to be. So walk me through what you’re doing.”

For some reason, this made Eugene smirk at him. But Nicholas started talking in a burbling stream of commentary that was almost pleasant to listen to.

The sun was starting to sink when they said goodbye to Eugene with many thanks and promises of I owe yous.

“I’d take you both to dinner but I’ve just got a text and it looks like I’m already taking someone else out tonight.”

“Are you going to tell me who?” Nicholas asked but Eugene laughed and climbed into his car with a shake of his head.

“Bet it’s a booty call,” Nicholas told Seiji absently, wiping his hands on a rag before dropping it back where he’d found it and closing up the garage. “Gene likes to talk about owing me for all the work I’ve put into that beast with him but, really, I’m the one that owes him.”

“How do you mean?” Seiji asked. Nicholas shrugged, taking up his jacket again. But he didn’t get in the car, only leaned against the door. Seiji didn’t move to get into the car either.

“I mean that I don’t know where I’d be if I hadn’t met Eugene.”

“He’s the one that drove you to the hospital,” Seiji realized. “And called Robert.”

“Yeah,” Nicholas nodded, as if he was granting Seiji a point. “There’s that. He literally saved my life that day. I don’t know that I’d have called an ambulance. But I meant that that stupid car of his making our paths cross set my life on a brighter course, you know? Without him, I wouldn’t have met Bobby either. Maybe it’s cheesy but they’re my best friends. The first people to care about me ever. And my life would just have been pretty sad without them, that’s all. And, I guess, a hell of a lot shorter.”

“Nicholas—,”

“It’s a pretty night, let’s walk around,” Nicholas said loudly, pushing himself off the car. At Seiji’s expression, he added, “it’s not such a shady part of town. ‘Sides, I’ll protect you. There’s a sundae bar a couple blocks away that I think you’ll like.”

“What makes you so sure?” Seiji asked.

“I know you like ice cream,” Nicholas grinned. “At our wedding, you ate about a pint of it all by yourself.”

“I did not!”

“You went back for seconds.”

“It was a special occasion,” Seiji defended, feeling a flush coming on from the mortifying realization that Nicholas had _watched_ him eating two servings of ice cream. He hadn’t thought anyone had noticed.

Seiji walked around his car and climbed in.

“Don’t be like that,” Nicholas said, “I’m sorry for calling your ice cream addiction cute.”

“You didn’t,” Seiji scowled, flushing more.

“Yeah, but I was thinking it. Come on, let me take you to get some.”

“I’m putting up the hood, stand back,” Seiji warned briefly. Nicholas stepped off.

With his car properly battened down, Seiji allowed Nicholas to lead him down cracked and uneven sidewalks. It was late October and the sun was setting. Hardly the conditions for ice cream. But Seiji ordered a triple fudge sundae anyway and he and Nicholas sat outside as they ate them.

By the time he was halfway through his treat, Seiji’s hands were cold to the point of clumsiness and there were goose pimples running up his arms.

Something fell heavy on Seiji’s shoulders and Seiji looked over one to see Nicholas standing behind him. His leather jacket was still warm from his body.

“I don’t need this,” Seiji said, trying to slip out of it, but Nicholas’s hand fell heavy on Seiji’s at his shoulder and stilled its efforts to take off the jacket.

“You’re cold.”

“You’re not.”

Nicholas’s hand was warm over his.

“I’m hot-blooded.”

“I’ve been told on several occasions that I’m a cold-blooded creature,” Seiji said with a faint smile as Nicholas laughed over this.

“I’m pretty sure one of those occasions was my making. Put on the coat, you need it more than I do.”

Seiji set his sundae down and slid his arms through the sleeves of the coat, feeling instantly warmer.

“Thank you.”

“You look good in it,” Nicholas offered as if that was reason enough to lend someone your jacket on a cold evening. “The color matches your eyes.”

“Voids,” Seiji recalled quietly. Then took a big bite of his sundae, frustrated with himself for thinking about that.

“Voids,” Nicholas agreed. “Or precious black pearls or loveliest obsidian. But I like voids best.”

“That’s most fitting for someone like me.” Empty, bottomless pits.

“Mmm-hmm. Voids. Pure, gorgeous black. But, you know, if you look close enough, you can find whole galaxies in voids.”

“Can you?” Seiji asked, setting down his empty glass and tilting his head at Nicholas in curiosity. “I thought voids were the emptiness between galaxies.”

“Uh-uh. They can be. But not always, sometimes they just have very few galaxies. But that’s still a lot when you think about it.”

“And you see galaxies in my eyes?” Seiji asked mockingly. But Nicholas held his gaze.

“I do.”

Seiji looked away. Hearts and eyes and voids and galaxies…Seiji didn’t know what to do with any of it.

“Nicholas?”

“Yeah?” Nicholas’s response was immediate. Seiji looked at him, thinking again of the grainy words spilling from his office television this morning.

“What would you have done?” he asked, pulling Nicholas’s stupid leather jacket more tightly around himself. “If you’d had someone before you found out about…your obligation to me, what would you have done?”

Nicholas’s surprise was evident, but then he looked to the setting sun and sighed. Glancing slantwise at Seiji, all he said was, “What could I have done?”


	30. Chapter 30

“If you are not in full costume already, I will murder you and use your head for a lawn decoration,” Katayama’s charmingly pissed off voice called as Nick spilled in the front door and kicked off his shoes. “If you make me late to this party—oh, you’re ready.”

Nick struck a pose and laughed at Katayama’s stunned expression.

“I was with Bobby, he did my makeup,” Nick explained, wrinkling his nose at Katayama—a nose that was painted black like a dog’s. He had elaborate wolf ears, too, and his shirt was open over spirit-gummed on chest hair. Chest…fur? He’d even let Bobby put fake nails on him and file them into claws. With the fangs and the other touches of Bobby’s magic styling skills, Nick looked like a pretty fierce werewolf.

“Your jeans,” Katayama said distastefully. Nick laughed, looking down at his ripped-up blue jeans and back up at Katayama’s dismay at them.

“What are you supposed to be? You look exactly the same as usual.”

“I’m a vampire.”

Nick stared at him, then burst out laughing. “A werewolf and a vampire, huh? It’s almost like we planned it. But you just look like you. Show me your fangs,” he urged.

“No.”

“I can’t go to my company’s huge Halloween costume party with a husband who’s not even wearing a costume!” Nick didn’t really care about that, he just wanted to see if he could make Katayama bare his teeth.

Katayama didn’t bare his teeth, but he curled a lip up just enough for what _might_ have been a fang to peep out. Nick couldn’t stop himself from hooking a finger in that lip and pulling it up, just to make sure. It _was_ a fang.

“Nicholas!” Katayama said around his thumb, then tore Nick’s hand away from his face with a glare. “Careful with your claws, you oaf.”

“Oh, right. Sorry. Well, your fangs look good, but we’ve got to do something about the rest of you.” Nick looked Katayama up and down with his hands on his hips in much the same way Bobby had looked him over this afternoon. Then he nodded. “I know what we need,” he said, grabbing Katayama’s wrist and dragging him to the bedroom. “Just a couple little tweaks and you’ll be a _perfect_ vampire.”

Nick dug through his clothes before finding the silky, deep red shirt Katayama had picked out for him in France months ago.

“What are you doing?” Katayama snapped when Nick tried pushing his blazer off his shoulders.

“Take that off and put this on,” Nick said. “Quick, we’re gonna be late.”

“I don’t really…”

“Wear it and I’ll surrender my pants to you after the party. For confiscation purposes,” Nick clarified at Katayama’s widened eyes.

Katayama hesitated, thinking it over, then took the shirt. Clearing his throat, Katayama looked pointedly at Nick, who got the hint and turned away, letting Katayama do the quick change in relative privacy.

“Almost,” Nick said when he was allowed to turn back around. He reached for Katayama’s shirt— _his_ shirt, that he’d worn on his birthday, that Katayama was wearing now—and pulled a button open, batting a hand away when it tried to stop him. “Vampires should be sexy,” Nick said seriously, pulling the shirt as wide open as Nick’s was, but over a chest that was free of fur.

“I’m not wearing it like this,” Katayama said, hand making a bee-line for the buttons. Nick grabbed his wrist again before he could ruin the look. This time, he hauled Katayama into the bathroom.

“Relax,” Nick said, “you look great in it. Let’s fix your hair.”

“My hair?” Katayama asked, pulling away from Nick, more affronted by the threat to his hair than he had been by Nick’s invasion of his mouth or personal space when unbuttoning his shirt.

“I know,” Nick agreed, wetting his hands in the sink before diving into Katayama’s severely parted and styled hair. “I never thought I’d think slicking your hair back more was what I’d mean when I told you to fix it. But it’s the vampire look.”

“My hair does not need fixing,” Katayama seethed.

“Your hair looks good when you wear it down,” Nick said, laughing at the offense Katayama took over this. “And it looks good now, too, in a vampire sort of way.”

Nick looked over his work, slicked-back hair and wide-open blood-red shirt. Even without the fangs, which, knowing Katayama, wouldn’t be much on display since he didn’t enjoy talking at functions like these, it was obvious what he was meant to be. Katayama turned to the mirror and frowned into it. Nick looked too, grinning at the effect of them together.

“You make an incredibly sexy vampire.”

Katayama spun away.

“You make a supremely hideous werewolf. Get your shoes, we need to get going.”

“Sure thing, my dark love,” Nick cackled. He went with some beat-up leather work boots from back in the day. Katayama wore sleek black leather loafers.

They weren’t late at all to the party. A couple of Nick’s buddies from the office were there already and, after letting Katayama pull him around to say hello to all the important people, Nick dragged Katayama over to socialize with them.

“Why are _they_ here?” Nick asked not much later, watching distastefully as Charles Kane, with his latest beautiful wife on his arm, appeared. Aiden wasn’t far behind, looking exactly the same as always but for a flower crown. He came sauntering over right away.

“It was, of course, only polite to invite them,” Katayama murmured quietly. He sounded like he’d have been glad for their invitations to have gotten lost in the mail, though.

Aiden descended upon them with a wide and slippery smile.

“I love the costumes,” he said, but he didn’t even look at Katayama, his once-over of Nick took up all his attention and was a little too lingering for comfort.

“Thanks,” Nick said, finding Katayama’s hand at his side and holding to it obviously enough to send a message. “What are you?”

“Puck,” Aiden chirped. “Fitting, don’t you think?”

“Sure,” Nick said. But he’d never read that play so he couldn’t say how fitting it really was. “I like it, but vampires are more my thing. It’s good seeing you, Aiden. Enjoy the party!”

Aiden looked ready to say something else and Nick wasn’t sure if it would be something overtly flirty or cuttingly cruel from the way his eyes flashed with anger and his lips pulled into a sensual smile. But he abandoned whatever he was going to say, his smile faltering, then falling.

“I’ll be seeing you around, Nicholas,” Aiden said, sounding strained and distracted before disappearing in the opposite direction. Nick glanced over his shoulder to see what had spooked Aiden but he couldn’t figure out what had made him do such a quick heel turn.

One of Robert’s lawyers, a handsome man with perfect deep brown skin and sharp cheekbones, waved at Nick with a friendly smile.

“Harvard!” Nick said, taking Katayama over to say hello. “How’s it going?”

“Not bad at all,” Harvard said warmly. He was only a couple years older than Nick, new to Robert’s team, and by far Nick’s favorite on it. He was kind and had been more patient with Nick than the other two lawyers who’d told him about the nitty-gritty details of his new situation back in February. “I’m loving the costumes, very cute and matchy.”

“Thanks! We coordinated.” They had not coordinated at all. “What are you?”

“Oberon,” Harvard said. “Lame, I know, but I love Shakespeare.”

This got Katayama talking. Because _of course_ something as boring and bookish as Shakespeare would get Katayama talking. And Nick didn’t mind listening. This was better than the first party they’d attended together, when they’d both wandered off from each other and Nick had been pulled away for nefarious purposes by a beautiful boy that was _not_ his husband. And it was better than the handful of other events they’d been to, where Katayama’s words were sparse and demure. At least he was talking now. Even if it was only to one person and only about Shakespeare. Maybe, eventually, he’d come out of his shell at these things and behave like the man Nick knew him to be instead of the boy he’d obviously been trained to present himself as at functions like these.

Harvard eventually got pulled away by a group of his lawyer buddies, and Katayama and Nick were on their own again. Nick noticed that he still had Katayama’s hand in his claws and let go to scratch at his neck a little awkwardly.

“Sorry about that,” he muttered. “I just didn’t want to get kidnapped by Aiden.”

“Understandable,” Katayama said seriously. “And, actually, Jesse said something interesting to me last month about that.”

“Jesse?” Nick asked, surprised to hear the name from Katayama’s mouth. They didn’t usually talk about Jesse. But the surprise acted as a summons because Nick’s little brother appeared from the crowd, dressed as a golden prince.

“What do you want?” he asked, clearly believing he had more important things to do than talk to Nick.

“Nothing,” Nick scowled. He didn’t extrapolate but he might have if his phone hadn’t buzzed in his pocket. “Oh,” he said looking down at it, “Eugene says he’s almost here.”

“Eugene?” Jesse asked, his surprise similar to Nick’s moments before. Probably at the idea of Nick inviting his peasant friends to their father’s Halloween party.

“You met him at my wedding, I think,” Nick said, trying to remember. “A little shorter than me, really buff, a total jock with hair like—,” Nick splayed his fingers above his forehead the way Bobby liked to do when making fun of Eugene’s perpetually messy hair.

“I didn’t know you invited Eugene,” Katayama said. Jesse frowned at him. Probably mad that Katayama hadn’t kept Nick in line and thought his poor diligence had let another peasant into their party.

“I invited Bobby and Dante too but they’re busy. Eugene said he’d stop by if he had time after trick-or-treating.”

“Trick-or-treating? Isn’t he too old for that?”

Nick laughed at Katayama’s judgmental tone. He imagined Katayama thought ten was too old for that nonsense. But Nick shook his head.

“You know Eugene’s got that big family with lots of little siblings—some of them still trick-or-treat and he goes with them.” Nick didn’t mention that Fritz, the youngest of Eugene’s siblings, was already fourteen. Katayama probably didn’t know the difference between a ten-year-old and a fourteen-year-old anyway. “His whole family does a neighborhood trunk-or-treat sort of thing, it’s really fun. I’ve been a couple of times.”

“I see,” Katayama said dubiously.

“Hey, we should go next year, we could catch the first half of it.”

“I don’t know what trunk-or-treating is and I’d prefer to keep it that way, actually.”

“What about you, Jesse?” Nick asked, just to be annoying. “Don’t you think trunk-or-treating sounds fun?”

“It sounds…interesting,” Jesse said haltingly, which was more civil than Nick had expected. He was honestly impressed.

“See, even Jesse wants to try it out,” Nick said triumphantly to Katayama. “And Eugene loves you, he’d let you tag along for sure.”

“Who do I love?”

“Great timing, Gene,” Nick said, turning to grin at his best friend. He had on chain mail, metal vambraces, and a sword belted at his hip. “You look like you just stepped off the set of _Merlin.”_

“And you look like you’ve just stepped off the set of _Teen Wolf._ Except with a cuter werewolf face.” Eugene tapped his nose. “Bobby’s handiwork?”

“You know it,” Nick confirmed. Then noticed his husband and brother watching them. “Anyway, Eugene, we were just talking about going trunk-or-treating with you next year.”

“Oh?” Eugene asked, his short eyebrows disappearing into his messy hair. He was looking at Jesse now and who could blame him? Having a dick like Jesse invited to your family’s truck-or-treating wasn’t a fun idea.

“I was telling Katayama that you love him, so it wouldn’t be a problem for me to bring him along.”

“‘Course not, we’d love to have him, and we’ll even tolerate you, I guess. And you know my mom, Nickster, she’s wondering when you two are coming around again.”

“Soon,” Nick promised. He’d been to visit the Labaos plenty, but he’d only dragged Katayama along the once, to Eugene’s birthday. He didn’t want his coldly blunt husband to offend them. But, Nick thought, glancing over at his coldly blunt husband, Katayama had been pleasant, if a little anti-social, at the party. Maybe he’d invite him next time he went to Eugene’s. Looking over to his friend, Nick saw that Eugene’s eyes had wandered back to Jesse while Nick’s had been on Katayama. “Oh, right,” he realized, almost slapping his hand to his forehead. “Eugene, this is Jesse, I don’t know if you remember him from the wedding, but, yeah. That’s my little brother.”

Jesse made a face at the title.

“I remember,” Eugene said. “Who would have thought you’d be introducing me to a little brother?”

“It’s only fair. You introduced me to three of yours. And a sister. I’ve just got the one, though.”

“Better take care not to lose him if you haven’t got any spares. It’s good to see you again, Jesse,” Eugene offered kindly. Way more kindly than Nick really thought Jesse warranted. But Jesse must have still been pissed off about the talk of little brothers and with having to associate with peasants because he scowled at the kindness.

“And you too, Eugene,” Jesse returned. Then he turned and stomped off.

“Sorry about that,” Nick said with a shrug. “He’s a bit of a brat.”

“That’s alright,” Eugene said, but he was frowning after Jesse too. Then, smile reinstating as he swept a look around the room, “So show me around the place.”

Nick did, and the party was made extra fun with Eugene there to pass commentary on all the fancy rich folks with. But after a while, Eugene ducked from conversation to go track down the buffet. Nick would have gone with him but Katayama was engaged in conversation, so Nick stayed.

“Hey,” he said, when they were able to extract themselves from the business talk as well, “what were you going to tell me? About something interesting Jesse said?”

“Oh, that,” Katayama said, glancing around. He took Nick’s hand again and pulled him away from the commotion, to a quiet spot under a spiraling staircase. “Jesse thinks the Kanes are trying to break up our marriage. And, as a result, split my company from yours.”

“And then swoop in and become Katayama Energy’s biggest partner instead of just being a side hoe,” Nick said.

“You catch on quick.”

“I think…I think I kind of assumed that’s what they were doing. I just didn’t put it all together. But I saw them, you know, talking once. Charles and Aiden. Some fishy conversation between them and then suddenly Aiden can’t leave me alone? Something sneaky had to be happening. So that makes sense, what you said. But how does _Jesse_ know that?”

“I have no idea and I haven’t asked him.”

“Huh. Strange of him to be helpful.”

“Hardly. Coste Motor is still his family’s company and he has stakes in its success even if he didn’t inherit it all.”

“I guess. Maybe there’s more to him than just a brat who hates my guts.”

“Maybe,” Katayama agreed doubtfully. “But we’d better go find Eugene. I feel bad abandoning him to these people for so long.”

“You do care! I’m telling Eugene as soon as we find him.”

They went to the buffet first, but Eugene wasn’t there.

“Hey, Jeffers!” Nick called, waving over one of the guys from work he got on well with. “Have you seen my friend Eugene? The one I introduced you to earlier tonight? He said he was going for food but I think he must have gotten lost.”

“I think I saw him talking to your dad a bit ago,” Jeffers said slowly, thinking. “But I don’t know where he is now.”

“My dad?” Nick muttered under his breath.

“Why would Eugene be talking to Robert?” Katayama asked him. But Nick didn’t know. And he wasn’t talking to Robert anymore, if he ever _had_ been; Robert was entertaining other guests. And Eugene was nowhere to be found.

It was an hour before they ran into him by chance back at the buffet.

“Where’d you run off to?” Nick asked. “Katayama was worried sick, you should have seen him.”

Katayama’s lip pulled up in a contemptuous look at Nick. But Nick didn’t mind it. He liked the way the expression revealed one of the fangs Katayama wore.

“Thanks for the concern,” Eugene said, accented with a laugh and a raised eyebrow at Nick. Probably because he’d caught Nick’s interest in Katayama’s fangs and thought that meant he was right that Katayama was _not that bad, Nick._ “But I didn’t get eaten by the big bad bourgeoisie, so no worries.”

“Where _have_ you been?” Nick asked, finally sparing a moment to look at Eugene more closely.

“Around,” Eugene shrugged with an easy smile.

Nick knew what that meant. Eugene looked a little disheveled in the way only kissing could dishevel a guy. Nick wondered which of this upper-crust bunch Eugene had snuck off to have fun with.

He just hoped it wasn’t Aiden.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here, have the Halloween chapter on the first day of December XD clearly i have great timing


	31. Chapter 31

Nick always thought better with tangible, fixable work in front of him. Sometimes in the office, he felt like he was making no progress at all. One of his mentors—the strict man that had been Katayama’s private tutor growing up—always gave Nick particular trouble with his demands, and Nick had spent his entire Saturday catching up on all the bullshit readings he was meant to be doing for the class. _That_ was frustrating, too.

Even if Nick was settling into, and even getting a little interested in the profession he’d been unknowingly born into, he was twenty years behind the game and struggling to catch up all at once. Which meant extra work and expectations he felt like he’d never be able to meet. It meant free time and free brain space all going to business and with what felt like very little to show for it. He hadn’t been able to make any real progress on his idea for affordable energy-efficient cars. He was hardly allowed into meetings without a babysitter to make sure he didn’t fuck it up.

Sometimes, he needed to be able to work on something and see the progress. He needed to know he could _do_ something, fix something, be something. Yesterday, he’d muddled through his readings for Dmytro, the professor from hell. Today, he came to Joe’s.

“Sounds like a real piece of work,” Joe had said after listening to Nick’s complaints. And then he’d directed Nick to a different _real piece of work._

“So,” a familiar voice said, hours later, “Joe’s still putting you to good use?”

Nick slid out from under the car he’d been working on, looking up into the amused face of one of his best friends. Nick climbed to his feet with a grin.

“Exchange for playing therapist and sounding board for Coste car stuff,” Nick told Eugene, wiping his hands on his coveralls.

“Still can’t get him to sign onto your crew?”

“I think he’d kill me if I tried,” Nick laughed, glancing over to the garage Joe was currently working in.

“I don’t know, it might be worth it to see old Joe face off against your business dictator. He’s got even less tact than you.”

“As fun as that would be to watch, I think I’ll pass for now. What’re you doing here?”

“Just driving by and spotted your shiny car, thought I’d say hi.”

“Speaking of cars, how’s yours?”

“Holding up,” Eugene said nonchalantly. “How’s your husband?”

“Husband? How’d you get from cars to Katayama?”

“He shadowed you last time you worked on my car, didn’t he?”

“I guess. He’s fine.”

“You two seem to be getting along well. Anything you’d like to share with the class?”

“What?” Then Nick saw Eugene’s shit-eating grin. “No,” he said firmly. “Joke like that and I’m not helping you with your car next time.”

“Fine, fine, I won’t nose into your business.”

“There’s no _business_ to nose into. Not like that. But there is something I’ve been meaning to talk with you about.”

“Oh?” Eugene’s eyebrows shot up. “Some business we need to discuss?”

“Something like that. On Halloween, I couldn’t help but notice…”

“Oh. _That._ I shouldn’t have—,”

“No, it’s totally fine—do what you gotta do, you know? Just, my advice? Don’t do it with Aiden.”

“Aiden?” Eugene asked nonplussed. “The Kane guy that’s been going after you for shits and giggles?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m not interested in him.”

“Good. You sticking around?”

“If you want the company.”

“Just like old times,” Nick said, watching Eugene settle against the car he’d disappear back under in another moment.

They’d spent many long afternoons like this. Nick hadn’t had the luxury of free time but that’d never stopped Eugene and Bobby from hanging out with him. Joe had only chased them out a handful of times each. Mostly, he’d let the boys stay and talk to Nick as he worked, occasionally handing him tools or sitting in the car to turn the key on request.

It was nice to have something tangible in his hands again, to see his hard work yield undeniable results. It was nice to talk to Joe and hear Eugene’s laugh over the quiet din of the yard. But Nick had to admit that he didn’t miss the long, grueling hours and bone-tired aches of his old life. Cushy office jobs wouldn’t ever stamp out this part of him—and Katayama’s personal tutor could never keep Nick from returning to his first mentor on occasion for a reminder of who he was. But these were only his roots and Nick knew he was growing. Not growing _out_ of this yard, but growing _from_ it.

* * *

By the time Nick returned home, he was covered in sweat and grime, his coveralls tied at the waist and his arms smeared in grease and dirt. It wasn’t dark yet, but Nick felt just about ready for bed. He climbed out of his car and noticed that he could hear music from inside. Katayama wasn’t one for loud music, and would often scold Nick for having the volume too loud.

Squinting up at the massive windows at the front of the house, Nick saw where the music was coming from and why Katayama had it so loud. It was coming from _him_ , not a radio with a dial that could be turned down. He was framed in the window, profile elegant and posture regal as his arms moved with fluidity, fingers clearly at work along the keys of his grand piano, though Nick couldn’t see them from this angle. He stood there, neck craned up and eyes squinting through the sun-glinted window until the song was over.

Nick expected Katayama to be done, the spell to be broken, but when the music started anew, Nick unnailed his feet from the driveway and walked quietly up the front steps, slipping into the house with hushed movements. Katayama didn’t stop playing as Nick closed the front door softly behind him and stood at the edge of the mudroom, propping a shoulder up against the doorjamb, watching the back of Katayama’s head, the stark black hair getting a little long at the nape of his neck. He’d be wanting to get it touched up soon. Nick touched the side of his own head, feeling more fluff there than he preferred. Maybe they both ought to go in for a haircut. But Nick kind of liked the softness of this length on his husband and the way it lay against Katayama’s neck, looking temptingly easy to wrap fingers up in. If someone was dumb enough to try touching Katayama’s hair, much less pulling at it, that was. But it did look pretty today—Nick could see its style slipping as Katayama leaned forward over the piano.

From this new vantage, Nick recognized a quality in Katayama that wasn’t often present in his bearing. His posture, though regal, left room for an easy peace to the set of his shoulders. He didn’t look tense. Only _intent,_ lost in his music. Nick watched the thin fabric of his fine shirt stretch and shift across his back, watched him sway slightly—moving with the music in a way that was his own personal dance. It was mesmerizing. He wanted to circle around and see Katayama’s expression, see the hair threatening to fall in his face, get a better look at those hands…

Katayama had long, slender fingers, pale and unblemished from burns or cuts or scars, and they danced gracefully across ivory keys in transfixing ways—slow and fast and in sync and out of it and all over the piano and always managing to produce music Nick would never have thought he’d have any interest in listening to. He stood in the entryway and watched until Katayama released his foot from a brass pedal and the last note died down, fingers finally lifting.

“Gorgeous,” Nick said because it was all he could think.

Katayama’s shoulders tensed and his body flinched in a half-suppressed jump. He spun around on Nick with a sharp intake of breath and his expression was familiarly dour. Nick still wished he could have seen it in full while Katayama had been playing his music, peaceful and pretty.


	32. Chapter 32

Seiji’s gasp caught in his throat as he whipped his head too-fast around to lock eyes on a very grubby looking Nicholas. He was standing casually on the threshold between the mudroom and the dark wood flooring of the living room. _Standing_ was something of an exaggeration; Nicholas was slouched up against the wall, hands stuffed into the pockets of his wrinkled and dirty coveralls, which he’d tied low around his waist. Was that his sleep shirt? Or did he have multiple black tank tops and merely designated a single one as his sleep shirt? It didn’t matter. What mattered was—

“How long have you been skulking there?” Seiji snapped. Nicholas shrugged.

“A couples songs. I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“A couple…” Seiji said faintly, unsure why the thought of Nicholas—loud, disruptive Nicholas—standing quietly in the doorway to watch him play was such an uncomfortable one. It made his skin prickle retroactively under the attention. And, embarrassingly, his mind ran through every note he’d played, searching for a single one dropped or missed or out of place. As if Nicholas would notice. Or care. As if Seiji cared what Nicholas thought.

“Yeah, they were cool. Do you have them memorized? Isn’t there usually sheet music or something?”

“I’ve got an appropriate repertoire committed to memory.”

“Cool,” Nicholas repeated.

“Hardly that impressive,” Seiji dismissed, skin prickling even more. He wanted away from this conversation. “Were you working on Eugene’s car again today?”

“I was at Joe’s,” Nicholas nodded. Joe, Seiji remembered, was the owner of that dinky little yard Nicholas was so fond of. “And Eugene came by to hang.”

Seiji wasn’t sure what more to say but Nicholas didn’t move or speak and it made him feel as if he was expected to keep conversation going. How exhausting. He’d already had a long day—one of the reasons he’d decided to play today; he’d needed to unwind and his car was part of the problem, so it wasn’t as if he could go for a drive—

Seiji stood up, stepping from behind the bench of his piano carefully but quickly. It seemed absurd, in his estimation, to be in possession of both a broken car and a mechanic husband.

“As long as you’re all—,” Seiji gestured a hand over Nicholas, greasy and sweaty and rumpled from scuffed work boots to hair that stuck up from being pushed up out of his face so often, “can you come take a look at my car too?”

Nicholas gave no reply. He simply stared at Seiji with a blank face. It was awkward for the first second and quickly became excruciatingly embarrassing as Seiji realized that there wasn’t anything in their contract about favors and free labor. He shouldn’t have asked—

“What—really?” Nicholas finally said, voice and body both coming to life. He pushed off the wall and stood at attention, still staring at Seiji with wide, disbelieving eyes. “You want _me_ to look at your fancy car?”

_Ah._

Seiji could see it now, the source of Nicholas’s surprise. He flushed, remembering his words to Nicholas on the first occasion they’d met. Nicholas was recalling them too, Seiji could hear his next words already: _It’ll be a little hard to check on your car when I’m only allowed to touch the wheels._

“I can give it a look,” Nicholas agreed. Seiji waited to be scolded for his prior rudeness but Nicholas didn’t make a quip, though Seiji was sure he’d seen it resting on the tip of Nicholas’s tongue. Why had he swallowed it? “What’s up with it?”

“It’s making abnormal and unpleasant noises when I turn.”

“Could be a couple things, let’s go check it out.”

Seiji followed Nicholas out of the door and to the two cars parked in the driveway. Seiji hung back, not wanting to get in the way and impede the process of diagnosing and repairing his car. Curiously, Nicholas ducked into his own car first, emerging with a hardly-used rag. He took care wiping his hands free of the residual filth tattooed to his hands during the long day he’d spent lost in the old car yard. Seiji didn’t understand what the extra care was for until Nicholas pocketed the rag and continued with care as he popped the hood of Seiji’s car.

 _He’s trying not to dirty it_ , Seiji realized. There was no need for that—Seiji, of course, understood that cars got dirty in these things. They could always be cleaned. But as Seiji watched, Nicholas proceeded with much more delicacy than Seiji had known he was capable of. Than he’d known you could even exercise in a task like this. The care made Seiji’s skin burn again with shame. Nicholas never shot him a wink or a smirk or any indication that this was a mocking, hyperbolic brand of care meant to chide Seiji’s insistence that Nicholas would grubby up his car the same way he’d dirty his name. It made it worse—so much worse—that this seemed a genuine attempt to put Seiji at ease about the hands he’d put his car in.

“Katayama,” Nicholas said, head still under the hood, “would you grab my tools from my trunk? The box is red.”

“Of course it is.” Seiji went to retrieve the bright red toolbox.

As Nicholas pulled out what he’d needed and disappeared under the hood again, he started up a stream of commentary without Seiji asking. Seiji listened. And watched. He watched Nicholas’s fingers flex around tools and the smudge of grease on his bicep that distorted a little every time Nicholas used the arm. He watched the sweat on his brow drip down a track on his cheek and the concentrated expression on the grimy face beneath. Seiji watched. And he listened. And he understood absolutely nothing of what Nicholas said. Nothing but that Nicholas knew what he was doing and he was doing it well. Every movement had a sureness to it and Seiji felt foolish for ever thinking Nicholas was incapable of this, of fixing his car as well as the expensive Coste Motor specialists he usually took it to.

Nicholas straightened up, and Seiji noticed the way the racerback of his tank top left little to the imagination. How had he never noticed before how immodest the garment was? Shoulder blades shifted clearly and swathes of light brown arms and back were left in plain sight. Nicholas rolled his shoulders, then raised them in a stretch that tugged at the hem of his shirt, coaxing it free of the tie of his coveralls’ sleeves. Wide back and shifting muscles and warm-looking skin and the sliver of hip exposed for the silver of time Nicholas stretched—Seiji wasn’t sure what was so interesting about any of it. But he couldn’t look away.

A strap had twisted in Nicholas’s stretch and Seiji reached out, wanting to fix it…

“I want to top off the power steering fluid for good measure, so don’t drive it until I can get some for you, okay?”

“Yes,” Seiji said at once, snatching his hand back before Nicholas turned and caught wind of his insanity. “Understood. I’ll arrange transport to work tomorrow.”

“Arrange transport,” Nicholas laughed. “I’ll take you. We can pick up the fluid on the way home.”

“That sounds…thank you, Nicholas.”

“Yeah, no problem.” Nicholas shrugged. Seiji did _not_ look at his shoulders as he did. But he found Nicholas’s hands instead, working on transferring the grease and filth of his work on Seiji’s car to the rag. He had nice hands, capable hands—

“Here, I can just—,”

Seiji had intended to close the hood of his car to save Nicholas the trouble of trying to wipe his hands clean. But as he stepped forward, he stumbled over the bright red and obvious toolbox that he’d somehow forgotten about.

He was careening forward, his only option to catch himself on the car and hope the hood didn’t fall shut on him. Seiji jutted out hands, ready to catch the lip of the car, but something caught around his waist and yanked him sideways instead of forward. Startled to be falling in a new direction, he reached to grab what he could, finding a shoulder and a bicep as he turned into Nicholas. They stumbled back a couple of paces together, trying to regain balance. They didn’t. But the garage door stopped them from falling.

“You okay?” Nicholas asked. Seiji could feel the press of Nicholas’s fingers into his back. Seiji nodded.

“Yes.”

“We have got to stop ending up like this.” Nicholas’s grin was evident in his voice, even though Seiji refused to look at it. He stared at his own fingers, standing out pale against the black strap and warm brown skin they pressed into.

He remembered another time Nicholas had been so close and Seiji’s fingers had dug into biceps to steady himself from falling. How had he disengaged at that time? He couldn’t remember. Couldn’t figure out how to get Nicholas to let go of him and get himself to let go of Nicholas. Even though it was Nicholas crowded up against the garage this time, Seiji felt trapped.

“Shit!” Nicholas’s explosive voice caused Seiji to jump again, accidentally startling him forward into Nicholas’s chest.

“What?” Seiji demanded, looking around sharply but seeing nothing to warrant the loud curse.

“I’ve gotten you all dirty,” Nicholas said softly, apologetically. “You’re wearing your pretty turtleneck and I’ve gone and gotten it all covered in grease and muck.”

Seiji looked into Nicholas’s face. He’d forgotten he wasn’t going to look at his face. Nicholas looked so sincere, so concerned that he’d sullied Seiji. Seiji didn’t know that he particularly minded at this particular moment. He would have gotten plenty dirty if he’d landed in the car instead.

Despite Nicholas’s sincerity, his hands didn’t leave Seiji’s waist. Seiji was suddenly reminded of the way they moved over the inner workings of cars, with a sure and confident ease. Capable and strong and, for the moment, on Seiji.

Seiji swallowed hard and flicked his eyes away from Nicholas’s face, not wanting to watch as Nicholas watched _him._

“I can get another shirt,” Seiji said. It wasn’t a clever thing to say at all. Or an important one. He should have been upset over the black grease and sweaty grime seeping and smearing onto his pristine eggshell shirt. But he wasn’t. He was caught on the fact that Nicholas had called it pretty.

Nicholas’s hands slid off of Seiji. And _slid_ really was the right word. They skimmed down his back and around to his sides, brushing over the shape of his hips before falling off his body and returning to Nicholas’s sides. It was fast. Nicholas probably hadn’t realized where his hands had traveled to get back to him—it was the most efficient path, after all.

Seiji dropped his grip on Nicholas swiftly and stepped away, straightening out his shirt as if that could make any difference to the smudges and stains.

“You should go shower,” Seiji advised, walking back to his car and closing it up. “I’ll put away your tools, so—What are you doing!”

Nicholas laughed and Seiji felt the sound reverberate through his back, which was pressed to Nicholas’s chest. He’d knelt to pick up the tools but it hadn’t stopped Nicholas from squatting down too, only he’d folded his body over top of Seiji’s instead of making the trip for any practical reason.

“You called me stinky, this is revenge.”

“I didn’t—!”

“You said I should take a shower because you don’t want to get dirty.”

“Aren’t _you_ the one who was just apologizing for getting me dirty?” Seiji asked. Nicholas shrugged, the movement jostling the arms crossed around Seiji’s stomach.

“Your fault for wearing my filth so well.”

“Get off,” Seiji snapped, shooting an elbow backward into ribs. He’d had about enough of Nicholas’s word games for today.

“Okay, okay, I surrender,” Nicholas said, still laughing as he let go. But before standing up, he wiped a finger under Seiji’s eye. “You have a little something just there,” he said as Seiji’s eye squinted away from the too-close finger.

Nicholas withdrew—on his way, with any luck, to take a shower. Seiji finished putting away his tools and returned them to the trunk of Nicholas’s car, locking both vehicles before returning the keys to their hooks in the house. When he went to wash his hands in the guest bathroom, he noticed a smudge of black just under his left eye, smeared over his mole.

_You have a little something just there._

Seiji wondered if Nicholas had tried in earnest to remove the smear or if, as a little joke, he’d emphasized the single blemish on Seiji’s face, putting the smear there himself. Seiji cleaned off the smudge now, blaming his pink cheeks on the cold water and the scrubbing.

He changed quickly into new clothes. He’d send his shirt to the dry cleaner, just in case it was salvageable.

Despite the mess Nicholas had made of him in the driveway, Seiji did feel better. He’d had a full hour to dedicate to the piano and his car would be back in working order tomorrow. Feeling ready to work, he settled in his office.

It was some time later when he heard Nicholas pad past his office, out of the shower at last. He didn’t think much of it until he heard a plunking note ring through the house.

Frowning, Seiji stood, intent on telling Nicholas off for touching his piano.

“You really _can_ play this thing, huh?” Nicholas asked from the bench without looking up, throwing Seiji off his trajectory with the question.

“Of course I can,” Seiji said impatiently, watching Nicholas’s hands suspiciously as they brushed over keys. “Why else would I have said I play?”

“I never hear you.” Nicholas briefly tapped at Middle C. Seiji couldn’t tell if he was aware that the note was a common landmark or if he’d stumbled upon it randomly. Nicholas looked up from the piano and to Seiji. “Is that because you only play when I’m out?”

Seiji was tempted to shrug. He resisted.

“It would be discourteous to make an undue racket in the house when you’re here to be disturbed by it. Our contract states that—,”

“And you didn’t bash that out with Jesse? About getting to play your music?”

“Jesse plays violin, it was understood between us that practicing music was not counted under undue racket.” By which he meant it had been written in the contract…

“But I don’t play anything, so there was nothing to trade for,” Nicholas finished Seiji’s incomplete thought flatly. He was unimpressed with the contract, as always, but Seiji was somewhat impressed by Nicholas’s understanding of how this worked. It had taken him long enough. “I don’t think you playing the piano counts as an undue racket, Katayama. Have at it if you want. When I’m around, I mean. I don’t mind listening to it.”

“Very well,” Seiji said, thrown yet again. Nicholas understood how this worked but he didn’t follow it any better now than he had when they’d been writing their contract. Always giving Seiji things he wanted without asking for anything in trade.

Seiji expected Nicholas to leave the piano but when he didn’t, watching Seiji expectantly, Seiji felt obligated to fulfill the expectations of those eyes. Seiji walked slowly to the bench and sat on it next to Nicholas, tentatively lifting his hands to the familiar keys. He thought this was what Nicholas wanted him to do. If this was what Nicholas wanted in trade for allowing Seiji his music, it was a small price to pay. Hardly a price at all. Except for…

“Nicholas,” Seiji said softly, but there was still an undercurrent of disapproval in the way the name came out. Nicholas’s twitched-up smile told Seiji he’d heard it too and knew what was coming next. “You’re in my way.”

“Yup,” Nicholas agreed, not moving. No, Seiji hadn’t expected he would.

He adjusted to the barrier that was Nicholas and started to play.

Nicholas was a terrible nuisance, which wasn’t any great surprise. Moving freely and reaching every note he needed to was difficult around Nicholas’s body, but, more than that, Nicholas couldn’t decide where to look—Seiji could see in his peripheral vision as Nicholas switched between watching his fingers fly across ivory and watching Seiji’s face. Seiji couldn’t imagine what could possibly be so interesting about his face, but he could feel it start to heat a little more each time Nicholas’s gaze returned to it, and his fingers were made clumsy and slow by his awareness of Nicholas’s total attention.

He doubted Nicholas’s ear caught all the little errors, and Seiji was quick to cover them up and fold them into the music. It was an extra irritant to him, however, to fumble songs he’d been playing since he was twelve just because a pair of mediocre brown eyes watched him play those songs now.

If this was what playing when Nicholas was home would be like, Seiji rather thought he’d continue as he had been thus far, playing only when Nicholas was away.

“Gorgeous,” Nicholas said for the second time today, quiet and awed, voice almost lost. “Really, your hands are amazing, making music like that. You’re…gorgeous.”

At his words, Seiji’s finger slipped, hitting the wrong key and producing an imperfect note, awkward and discordant. This fumble, Nicholas noticed, and when Seiji was slow to recover, Nicholas’s hand, with grease still tucked under fingernails despite his long shower, reached to lift Seiji’s gently off the key, cutting the untidy note short. Carefully, Nicholas placed Seiji’s hand back down and dropped his own back to his lap.

Seiji didn’t say as much but he hardly thought _his_ hands were the most impressive between them.

Taking a breath, Seiji resumed playing. Because Nicholas had asked him to.


	33. Chapter 33

Seiji adjusted his tie as he looked at himself in the mirror.

Twenty-one.

Twenty had been a big year for him; it was the year he’d always known he would marry. Twenty-one felt stranger still. During his twentieth year, Seiji had still had half of it to be himself, apart from anyone else. Twenty was the last year of his life that could be spent in even partial freedom.

Twenty-one felt weightier than twenty. Twenty-one was the first birthday spent with his husband. It marked the start of all of the rest of his birthdays, all destined to be spent with his husband. A year ago, on his last birthday, Seiji had expected to spend his next and all the nexts with Jesse. So much had changed since then.

Marriage was a big change in and of itself, regardless of if you’d been expecting it for fifteen years. Marriage to a new and unexpected groom, though, that was really something.

“What’re you glowering at?” Nicholas asked, voice and eyes both soft as he leaned up against the frame of the open bathroom door.

“I’m not glowering.”

“I don’t think that tie can get any straighter, love.”

Seiji dropped his hands from the tie and reached for his box of tie pins with a sharp jerk of hands. Nicholas called him all manner of things. All manner of things save for his actual name. Jesse had been one to throw out awful endearments too, but he’d said them pointedly, knowing Seiji wouldn’t enjoy them. Nicholas…it was hard to tell with Nicholas.

“I told you that you should have said no to your parents,” Nicholas continued, waltzing into the room and plucking Seiji’s box from him. “You hate parties.”

“I can’t deny my parents this,” Seiji sighed.

“You never deny them anything,” Nicholas returned, voice hardening strangely. “You married a stranger for them, didn’t you? I think they can deal with not throwing you a party you’ll hate. Don’t they know you don’t like crowds? Don’t they know you at all?”

“Tread carefully,” Seiji warned. “My parents have my highest regards and I won’t hear you speak ill of them.”

“I wasn’t. I’m not.” Nicholas sighed, an echo of Seiji’s. “I like your parents, you know I do. But…I just don’t think you need to compromise yourself so much for them.”

“It’s only a party.”

“I know.” Nicholas closed the box of pins and handed it back to Seiji. He was an odd man, Nicholas was.

Seiji opened the box again and paused. A tie pin he’d never seen before gleamed up at him. It was an ornate thing of polished silver, shaped in a little blade. Seiji stared down at it, confused.

“Happy birthday,” Nicholas said in explanation for the tiny sword’s presence.

“It’s lovely.” It was. Seiji picked it out of the box and fastened it to his blue tie, then met the eyes of his reflection again. Twenty-one. What a strange birthday this was, what a strange feeling. In the mirror, Seiji saw himself and his husband behind him.

“You’re lovely,” Nicholas said. “I knew you’d look gorgeous in it, and I’d just like to point out that that’s not a thought I ever anticipated having. That someone would look gorgeous in a fucking _tie pin._ But I know you like them and I was right. You do look gorgeous.”

“The compliments slide from your tongue as if coated in venom,” Seiji said, turning from the mirror and striding past Nicholas.

“What does that mean?” Nicholas asked, trailing after him.

Seiji pulled on his blazer and straightened it smartly.

“It means that you expect them to weaken me, but you should know that I spent fifteen years playing this game with Jesse. I’ve grown an immunity.”

“An immunity to compliments? And why would I think compliments would weaken you—why would I even say them for that reason?”

“Because there’s no other reason you would.” Seiji stepped into his shoes and left Nicholas to stumble into his.

They didn’t talk on the drive to Seiji’s parent’s manor, the house he’d grown up in, large and somehow simultaneously empty and claustrophobic. Nicholas had been here before; he no longer gaped as they pulled in. Seiji still remembered the nerves of bringing his husband to dinner here for the first time, but it was true that he’d gotten along well with Seiji’s parents. There were few people that Nicholas didn’t manage to get along with.

The house was already filling with guests when they stepped into it, and Seiji was immediately the center of attention, receiving endless strings of the same phrases. He thanked and nodded and smiled nicely. But Nicholas was right. He’d have preferred something akin to Nicholas’s birthday celebration; just a simple meal with family. Even if Jesse had managed to make that night awkward with his strange and wholly inappropriate outburst, it had been better than this.

And it was worse than the Halloween party a fortnight ago because…because where had Nicholas gotten off to? Hadn’t they agreed that they should stay together at events? For the very least until Aiden Kane tired of his endeavor…or his _assignment_. And it would be quite a kerfuffle if Seiji’s husband was found sequestered away with another man on his birthday, even if all sequestering was against Nicholas’s will. Who would believe that?

Once he was finished receiving birthday wishes from his parents’ old friends, Seiji went to find Nicholas before he could get them both into trouble.

A familiar, roaring laugh caught Seiji’s ear, followed by an even more familiar one in response. Eugene and Nicholas. Those two got so _loud_ when they were together. Seiji followed the auditory trail of their laughter and their intermingling voices, which he could pick out of the crowd now that he’d honed in on them. They were tucked at the bottom of the staircase, and Seiji spent a moment looking down on them.

They looked nice, both of them. Cleaned up and dressed in slacks and button-downs and, in Eugene’s case, a sweater, hair neatly combed into place—as neat as either of them believed in keeping their hair under any circumstances, in any case. Their conversation was a little loud, a little animated. But they didn’t look out of place. Seiji wondered if that was because they truly fit _here_ or if they fit with each other, always at home in the other’s company.

“In another life, maybe they could have made it,” a slightly forlorn voice said at Seiji’s side. Seiji looked up and found Jesse standing next to him, looking down at the men at the bottom of the stairs with a complicated expression. He often wore a complicated expression where Nicholas was involved. Tonight, it was a little sadder than usual.

“Made it?” Seiji asked, nonplussed.

“Do you ever think about soulmates?”

“I’m—what?”

“Soulmates.” Jesse tapped a finger against his champagne flute. At twenty, he was too young to drink but who would stop him? Seiji knew Jesse disdained the taste of alcohol, he’d confessed as much once. He liked the idea of it, though. Champagne was one of Jesse’s favorite accessories. “The idea that two people are made for each other. We were soulmates, forged in ink. But those two,” Jesse nodded down at the landing, “are soulmates forged in something else. Something realer. But thanks to Granny Marjorie’s faith in her son’s ability to keep it in his pants, everything is all fucked up.”

“You think—?”

“Don’t you?” Jesse asked. “Just look at them. I never loved you like that.”

Seiji blinked at the figures below them, letting them go in and out of focus. There was that easy way about them, wasn’t there? Love. Yes, Seiji knew that Nicholas loved Eugene, but…but he’d never thought to consider _how_ he loved him.

“That’s too bad,” Seiji said, recognizing that his voice was too sharp. “Nicholas signed away his soul to me, not Eugene.”

“And so you get a new soulmate written up in a contract. And I get nothing. And they,” a flourish of the hand downward, “get worse than either of us, don’t they?”

Seiji glared down at Nicholas and Eugene as they engaged in that half-hug thing they did so often before starting up the stairs.

Seiji took the flute of champagne from Jesse and downed it all in one go, nearly coughing at the fizzing trail it left in his throat and clawed at his nose.

“Hey!” Jesse protested.

“You weren’t going to drink it.”

Seiji shoved the empty flute back into his hands. With an abrupt pivot, Seiji left Jesse and the stairs and the two men coming up them to go find something else Jesse wouldn’t drink but Seiji felt suddenly in desperate need of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seiji: life’s going pretty okay :)  
> Jesse: hold my champagne


	34. Chapter 34

“Where the fuck did he get off to?” Nick wondered, scanning the crowd. Again. He’d been looking for Katayama for a solid hour. Usually, Katayama only ducked out of parties for a handful of minutes to recollect himself. So it hadn’t immediately worried Nick that after welcoming Eugene to the party, they’d been unable to locate Nick’s husband. It was normal enough for him to take five minutes. Even ten. But at twenty with no sign of him, Nick had started to get suspicious. It wasn’t like Katayama to shirk his duties and he’d see this—hiding away from social obligations put on him by his parents—as shirking.

“Still looking for Seiji?” Jesse asked in a bored drawl when Nick passed him again.

“Shove off.”

“You could ask me nicely where he went. Who knows, I might tell you.”

“You know where he is?” Nick asked, stopping in his tracks. Jesse shrugged, fingers playing against a flute of champagne that was as full as it had been the first three times Nick had passed by him. Annoyed, Nick grabbed it from him so he couldn’t fiddle with it anymore.

“Are you going to drink my champagne too? You and your husband have an interesting idea of manners.”

“Katayama doesn’t drink.”

“Seiji’s a rule follower, he doesn’t believe in underage drinking. But it’s his twenty-first birthday party, hadn’t you noticed?”

Nick stared at Jesse, unsure if he was pulling his chain right now or not. There was no way Katayama had drunk Jesse’s stupid champagne, was there? Jesse gave nothing away.

“You’re not drinking that, are you?” Eugene asked, coming up behind Nick with a thump on his back and disrupting the pointless staring contest he’d just been holding with his half-brother.

“No, it’s Jesse’s,” Nick said. “Did you see—?”

“Nope, but I hear he’s been making a dent in the liquor. Here, trade,” Eugene said, taking the glass from Nick smoothly and offering out the can of ginger ale he held.

“You know I don’t like that stuff,” Nick said, waving away the can.

Eugene also knew Nick didn’t like alcohol. Knew how bad his mom got sometimes and how bad the men she’d brought home could get when any of them had been drinking. He always seemed to think Nick shouldn’t be anywhere near the stuff, always took the drinks offered to Nick for himself or steered them away from open bars. Unnecessary precautions but Nick didn’t mind that Eugene took them either.

“Jesse?” Eugene asked, offering out the unopened can to him now.

“Actually, I’ll have my champagne back.” But when he reached out his hand, Eugene pressed the can into it instead. “Why is everyone—ugh!” Jesse grumped, head falling back in a frustrated gesture. “Seiji will be outside, probably in the gardens. Go find him and get out of my hair.”

Nick exchanged a look with Eugene, who shrugged, no more sure of the validity of Jesse’s tip than Nick was. But Nick had nothing better to go off of so he made his way outside alone.

Nick didn’t know where the gardens were, exactly, but he wandered along a path and did eventually spot a lone figure sitting on a stone wall, swaying gently with a bottle—an entire _bottle_ —of something sitting next to him, looking suspiciously empty. Nick slowed. Obviously, Eugene’s report was accurate and Jesse’s was too. Inching closer, Nick became sure that he knew this lone figure. And he knew that swaying, unsteady posture.

Katayama was drunk.

 _What sort of drunk,_ Nick wondered, _is my husband?_

Would he be angry? Katayama’s eyebrows were always pulled low over his eyes, his lips always set in a downward slope. He always looked angry. And he was easily irritated, short on patience, and generally cold. Mean, even. Drunkenness could make that worse. Nick thought of a plate whizzing by his head when he was a kid, thought of the cold, uninterested face he’d gone to in fear. Violent or dispassionate, which was worse? Which was Katayama?

“Katayama?” Nick asked softly, cautiously placing a hand on a shoulder. Katayama looked up at him, face wide open and dazed.

“Hmm?” he asked, then started tipping. Nick caught him and Katayama grabbed onto the front of his shirt to try and save himself, a gaspy little laugh emerging from his mouth when he realized he wasn’t falling anymore. “Nicholas,” he said, and there was something almost sleepy about the way he said it. “You’re here.”

“You’re drunk,” Nick said, a laugh of his own sounding. Katayama wasn’t angry or apathetic. He looked softer and more vulnerable than usual. For some reason, it made Nick want to steal him away right now rather than let him return to the party in this state, with that wide-open face.

“Mmm? Me? Drunk? Don’t be silly, I’m not—that would be—be—be very _bad_ manners, Nicholas,” Katayama informed him, clearly meaning to be serious, but his eyebrows didn’t seem to know how to make that expression anymore and his mouth was too close to a smile.

“Come on,” Nick said, scooping up the near-empty bottle of wine in one hand and scooping his other arm under Katayama, hauling him to his feet. “I think we should probably get going. Before you create a sensation.”

“Sensation…I know lots of sensations. I can feel my toes.”

“Yeah? How’s that?”

“Fine, fine…there’s that thing that’s like, the stitches? Seams! The seams of my socks, I can feel those too and I don’t think I like them right now.”

“You can take off your socks when we get home,” Nick told him with a stifled chuckle.

“Home…”

“Yeah, and then you can put on your beddy-bye sockies instead.”

“Don’t laugh. It’s bad manners to laugh at me on my birthday.” Katayama stumbled. “My head,” he complained. “It’s so full of thoughts. Too many. Doesn’t feel good.”

“We’ll be okay,” Nick assured him. “You didn’t drink this whole thing alone, did you?” Nick asked, waving the bottle to get Katayama’s attention. He shook his head.

“I took it. After you,” Katayama jabbed a finger into Nick’s chest, _“you_ kept trying to find me.”

“You knew I was looking for you?”

Katayama nodded a little too enthusiastically.

“Yes. And Jeffs—Jeffers kept giving me things and I kept drinking them but he said you’d make me stop and I—I knew you would too and you’d be—there. And I didn’t want you there so I left with that,” Katayama pointed.

“What on earth did Jeffers give you?”

“Cold. They just tasted cold.”

“That’s not a flavor.”

“Bad. Bad manners…” Katayama scolded. Nick hauled him into the house and tried to keep him upright and they moved through it, grinning abashedly at people as they passed. He spotted Eugene and handed off the bottle of wine to him. Eugene raised his eyebrows, entirely amused by Katayama’s display of tipsiness. Beyond tipsiness. He was giggling to himself now and Nick tried to shush him. He was starting to draw attention. Jeffers grinned extra big when he spotted them and Nick almost flipped him off.

“I think we’re going to head home now,” Nick said when Mr. and Mrs. Katayama appeared before them, looking a little concerned. “He went a bit overboard with the birthday celebration and—,”

“I don’t like parties,” Katayama blurted to his parents, then his head lolled back onto Nick’s shoulder. Nick shrugged at them, like _see, best to get him out of here._ Mrs. Katayama kissed her son goodbye, then kissed Nick’s cheek goodbye as well.

“I’m sorry to burden you with him like this,” she said.

“It’s no biggie. He’s my burden to bear now, isn’t he? And I don’t mind.”

She nodded and then Nick and Katayama were on the move again.

“Keys,” he said.

“No,” Katayama protested. “You can’t drive my—my—myyyy car! No.”

“If you wanted to drink, you should have told me,” Nick sighed, fishing into Katayama’s pockets despite the other man’s attempts to bat away his hand. He found the key and got Katayama loaded into the car on the passenger side. “I’d have driven if I’d known—,”

“I didn’t wanna,” Katayama said, head banging back against the headrest. “I just did.”

Nick reached across him to buckle him in, then rummaged in the back for one of the water bottles he knew Katayama stored there.

“Drink this,” he said, trying to close Katayama’s resisting fingers around the bottle.

Katayama’s head flopped away from Nick.

“No thanks.”

“Yes,” Nick insisted, twisting the cap to break the seal in hopes that easy access would tempt Katayama. “You’ll feel better. Did you eat anything?”

“Don’t remember,” Katayama muttered.

“We’ll get you some bread at home to try sopping up all that alcohol in you. For now, drink.”

Katayama turned back to Nick, hand slapping away the water and grabbing at Nick’s collar, pulling him farther into the car.

“I’ll throw up on you,” he warned, inches from Nick’s face. “If you make me…can’t eat right now. A bad idea.”

“It’ll help.”

“I won’t!”

“Fine.” Nick carefully untangled Katayama’s fingers from him and tried again to wrap them around the water. “I won’t make you eat. But drink that.”

“It’s my birthday.”

“I know. And this is a present.”

“Already got a present.” Katayama crawled the fingers that weren’t trapped under Nick’s hands up to his tie, closing a fist over his pin, like he thought Nick meant to take it away in exchange for this new present. Nick shook his head, trying not to laugh too much at Katayama’s drunken state.

“And you look very pretty in it. Just take a sip of water if you can, okay? Please?”

Katayama squinted at Nick.

“Okay,” he said, taking the water enough for Nick to let it go.

Nick nodded and pushed himself out of the car, closing Katayama’s door before circling to climb in himself. Katayama stayed quiet as they drove, except for when he tried to be a backseat driver. His advice was mostly nonsensical but the general gist of it was that Nick was getting sued if he wrecked the car.

“Aaaand we’re home,” Nick announced as he pulled into the driveway. When Katayama didn’t make a move to get out himself, Nick circled the car to open his door and unbuckle him. Finally, Katayama came tumbling out, unsteady and clingy. Nick pulled him close with an arm around the waist, tugging Katayama’s arm over his shoulder. “Almost there,” he promised, helping Katayama up the steps to their front door and spilling them into the house. Katayama kept on trundling but Nick stopped them. “Shoes,” he reminded.

Katayama looked down at his feet in dismay. “I’m too…” he started but gave up before telling Nick if he was too tired or drunk or clumsy to bother with shoes.

“Come on, Katayama,” Nick prompted. “It’s your damn rule. Or are you invoking the condition for extenuating circumstances?” But Katayama shook his head. Nick kicked off his own shoes and then knelt to get Katayama out of his. “Not so hard, was it?” Nick asked, standing back up.

“Seiji,” Katayama said in a mumble. “My name’s Seiji. Why won’t you ever just…just call me by my name?”

“You told me not to dirty it, remember?” Nick asked, amused by Katayama’s concerned eyes, the way his eyebrows fought to furrow over them.

“’S not dirty. I want you to—I want you to call me Seiji. Please.” He was stumbling now, weight heavy against Nick’s side as he hauled him up the stairs to their bedroom. Nick glanced at his face again. He looked so intent on this.

“Tell me that when you’re sober and I’ll believe it,” Nick huffed, relieved when they finally made it into their room. He deposited his husband on the bed. Katayama stayed sprawled there, unmoving now that Nick was done making him move.

“I feel so heavy,” Katayama’s voice was light and airy, almost giggly. “So heavy and in every direction.”

“Uh-huh,” Nick said absently, digging through Katayama’s pajama drawer. It was full of identical sets of his terrible suit-like pajamas, a couple of worn shirts, and some sweatpants. Nick went for the tried and true, even though he was sure sweats and a tee would look better than Katayama’s favorite pajamas. He thought it more likely that Katayama would change into his favorites.

But, as he was pulling out a pair of the awful, stiff pjs, a bundle of black silk and chiffon and red lace came with it, having been hidden in the back of the drawer behind them. Nick stared at the lingerie blankly, holding it unfurled in his hands. No matter how you looked at it, these were the pajamas Nick had gotten for Katayama so many months ago. He couldn’t believe Katayama still had them. Nick had expected them to have gone out with the trash the morning after gifting them to Katayama.

“D’you want me to wear that?” Katayama asked, his words blurring together. He was sitting up on the bed now and it looked like it was taking him great effort to maintain the posture. And, as Nick watched in a mixture of horror and amazement, Katayama started stripping out of his pants, clumsily kicking them to the ground. “I will,” he said, his tie pin clattering to the hardwood floor as his tie _siiik_ ed out of its knot with a careless tug. “As a—a birthday present.”

“It’s _your_ birthday,” Nick reminded him, unsure how to stop Katayama from undressing. He was down to his shirt and boxers now and the shirt was being unbuttoned as quickly as Katayama’s inebriated fingers could manage.

“Doesn’t matter. Give me to that. That to me.” Katayama frowned, clearly displeased that his words were not doing what he wanted. So he paused in his unbuttoning and reached plaintively out. “Give,” he said simply.

Nick didn’t hand over the skimpy nightie and red lace panties. He wasn’t sure what sort of thought process the alcohol had granted Katayama, but he was sure Katayama wouldn’t appreciate waking up in this regalia.

“Here,” Nick said, handing him the blue pajamas instead and casting the nightgown back into the drawer. “Put these on.”

Katayama didn’t take the offering, turning his attention back to his buttons. Nick tried not to look. Katayama was so much in this moment that Nick had never been allowed to see. So much long leg, so much messy hair, so much bare skin peeking out more and more each moment until the shirt was shed completely and Katayama was left in tight black boxer briefs that accentuated his ass. And _damn_. Nick hadn’t realized Katayama had such a great ass but it was impossible not to notice now with the way Katayama was sitting, knees splayed and legs bent and feet tucked neatly under his butt as he leaned forward, reaching for something. Not for Nick or the pajamas he held, but the drawer behind him.

Nick realized just in time that Katayama was about to topple off the bed, unable to reach the drawer from so far away but too drunk to see it. He caught Katayama under the armpits and tried to drop him back down on the mattress but Katayama’s arms closed around Nick’s back and didn’t let go. It was Nick that ended up toppling, pushing a giggle out of Katayama when he landed on top of him.

Katayama’s legs untangled themselves from his body to cradle Nick’s hips instead. A hand clawed up his back and dove into his hair. Nick stared down in shock but Katayama looked determined, albeit in a giggly and drunk sort of way. Katayama wasn’t a dangerous drunk in the ways Nick had learned to look out for growing up but he was still dangerous. Maybe the most dangerous drunk Nick had ever met.

“You can…” Katayama breathed. His breath smelled like alcohol.

“I can’t,” Nick said firmly, pushing one of Katayama’s legs off him before sitting up and pulling out of Katayama’s hold. “You should put on some clothes.”

Nick tried again to hand Katayama his pajamas but he turned his nose on them. He turned his everything on them, actually, rolling over in bed—onto Nick’s side of the bed—with a huffing sound and burying his head in the duck pillow. His eyes were already drooping and Nick predicted he’d be asleep in another minute. So he gave up on the pajamas and crawled off the bed.

He returned Katayama’s pajamas—all of them—neatly to his drawer and picked up the various parts of his outfit from tonight off the floor and bed and tossed them in the hamper. The tie pin, he put on the nightstand. Considering Katayama’s bare feet, Nick had the crazy idea to find him some socks. Why socks seemed like the most important part of pajamas right now, Nick didn’t know. But Katayama looked so exposed without them, without anything but his underwear.

“Do you want socks?” Nick asked, pulling open the pajama drawer again to pick some neatly rolled socks out of their sectioned-off corner. His fingers hesitated briefly over the single spot of black among the pristine white. Nick knew exactly what those were. If he picked them up and unraveled them, they wouldn’t be the uniform length of the crew socks Katayama had worn lately or the ankle socks he’d donned all summer.

These, Nick recognized, but he hadn’t expected to see them again. He’d assumed they’d gotten lost in the layers of tissue paper back when Katayama had pulled the rest of the ensemble out of the pink bag Nick had been sure would go in the dumpster without another look. But here they were, sequestered into a back corner like their companions. Nick glanced back over at Katayama, deciding it would be best not to pull out the thigh high stockings and let him see. He opted for a pair of crew socks, instead, hurrying to close the drawer on all thoughts of the slinky garments hidden within.

“Socks?” Nick asked again, trying to show Katayama the bundle he’d grabbed as he turned back to the bed and the man on it.

“Mmmh.”

Nick let the socks unravel and, with minimal help from Katayama, got them up over pale—and already icy cold—feet. Katayama flexed his toes and tucked his knees closer against him. He seemed content and that was enough for Nick. He just wished he could get the man to cover up a bit more.

With a sigh, Nick wrestled their comforter and sheets out from under Katayama, who moaned and complained and then found the rest of the duck pillow, which he curved his body around. Nick covered him up and tucked him in before getting ready for bed himself.

By the time he was actually ready to climb under the covers, Katayama was at a tilt, taking up the bed with a diagonal sprawl. Nick spent a second considering the best way to proceed and eventually ended up climbing into Katayama’s side, scootching his legs out of the way to make room for himself. Katayama’s pillow smelled like him and his legs soon came back, invading Nick’s—Katayama’s—side of the bed and tangling with Nick’s. Nick let him be.

“Happy birthday, Seiji,” he said softly to the pale shoulder peeking out beneath the covers. To Nick’s surprise, the shoulder shifted, and then glossy black eyes peered over it, a sleepy, off-kilter smile dancing on the lips that accompanied them.


	35. Chapter 35

Seiji woke up with a pounding headache. His arm felt sluggish as he bent it by his side, pushing himself up onto a propped elbow. It was a greater effort than it ought to have been. The early morning light was doing nothing to help his head but Seiji blinked around the room anyway. The movement made him feel dizzy, so he let himself take a moment, eyes closed, to collect himself. When he opened his eyes again, he looked over to find a glass of water and two small pills on the table by his bed.

"Drink those. It'll help." Nicholas.

Seiji located him groggily and squinted at the figure he knew to be his husband. Using his eyes hurt. Nicholas seemed dressed and tidily put together, which made Seiji doubt that his eyes were in full working order. Seiji frowned, reaching for the water.

"I don't understand the appeal of drinking," he said after downing the pills, whatever they were. "The whole process is unpleasant. It tastes bad, I hardly remember anything of last night, my head hurts, and—I’m only partially dressed!” he finished in horror as he realized the blankets had slipped down his chest. Which was undeniably bare. Nicholas chuckled.

"Yeah, I tried my best but I couldn't convince you into pajamas."

“You should have tried harder.”

“Next time,” Nicholas promised. There wouldn’t be a next time. “Drink the rest of your water, seriously.”

Seiji did as instructed.

“You seem entirely used to this,” he noted. A shadow passed over Nicholas’s face and Seiji’s sluggish brain finally remembered something Nicholas had said last month during a different birthday celebration.

“I guess it’s a side effect of growing up with a mom who was drunk more often than not. You learn all the tricks.”

“I didn’t—,” Seiji winced. Didn’t what? Mean to imply that Nicholas was a drunkard? Mean to bring up bad memories? Didn’t think at all before speaking?

Nicholas sat down on the bed, making the mattress dip in a now-familiar way.

“It’s alright. I _am_ entirely used to this, you’re right. You look queasy, lay down.”

Seiji didn’t want to, but Nicholas’s hand landed on his shoulder and pressed lightly, and Seiji didn’t feel up to a fight. Seiji let the hand push him back down into the bed. He didn’t know what to say. About Nicholas’s mother or about his own irresponsible decisions last night or about any of it.

Fingers brushed against his forehead, swiping the hair out of his eyes gently.

“Growing up…things weren’t always great. But that’s not your fault so don’t feel bad about it. I don’t want your pity. I could tell you about my mom and about her drinking. About how she felt about me and how she made _me_ feel. But I don’t like to dwell on that stuff and I don’t want you to either.” Nicholas’s voice was calm and steady as he spoke. “Growing up, my life wasn’t easy, but I grew up fast because of it. And I made something of myself. I know a lowly mechanic doesn’t seem like much to you, but I had a job that I liked and an apartment I never got an eviction notice in and a couple of friends to call family. I was alright. Even before Robert and Coste Motor and you. I was alright. So it’s all okay.”

Nicholas’s fingers were still dancing across Seiji’s skin, sweeping across his forehead and playing lightly in his hair. It felt nice. It felt _so_ nice.

“Okay,” Seiji agreed.

“Do you want to know something crazy?”

“Mmhm,” Seiji mumbled, closing his eyes against the soothing touch of Nicholas’s hand.

“This house is crazy. I never really…I mean, growing up, like I said, it wasn’t always smooth sailing. We were always moving and getting chased out, you know? And when my mom finally chased me out, I got my own place. That was better but it was just…a place to be until whenever, _why_ ever I had to leave for the next one. But this—this is a house. I bought a house. I never thought I’d have that. Something so solid and permanent. Something so mine. It’s not something I ever saw myself having. A place to call _home.”_

Seiji remembered the look on Nicholas’s face when he’d found the listing for this place. A sort of melancholy. He recognized the lonely desire there in retrospect. The peaceful longing on his face when he’d first stood in this room made sense too. _Home._ Nicholas had wanted a home. And, for the first time, he’d seen that for himself. Nicholas had seen it in this house, this room.

“Why here?” Seiji asked.

“Hm?”

“What about _this_ place, in particular, made you want to call it home? It was the only house you had an opinion on.”

Seiji could practically feel Nicholas shrugging.

“The view. The huge windows. The way it _feels_ open and free and not like a claustrophobic little one-room apartment. The fact that when I saw it, I could see myself here. It feels…real. Not like your old apartment.”

“My old place was real.”

“Nah, it wasn’t. Just like my old place wasn’t real.”

Seiji rolled his head to the side and opened his eyes to look at Nicholas.

“It was temporary,” he said, thinking he understood. “A place to be until I had to move onto the next place. I always thought my next place would be with Jesse.”

“And I always thought my next place would be necessary because I got kicked out.”

“But this place is real.”

“Yeah.”

“No more next places or Jesse or getting kicked out.”

“Yeah.”

They didn’t talk after that, not for a long time. But Nicholas stayed on the bed with him, petting his hair, and Seiji felt better for it. His head started settling down and some of last night came back to him. Mostly, he remembered a complicated twist in his gut and the need to ease it. And he _had_ eased it. But it was coiling again now, with Nicholas’s fingers in his hair and thoughts of Nicholas and Eugene in his head. Seiji wished the alcohol had been more effective in eradicating _that_ memory and Jesse’s horrible commentary on soulmates. He couldn’t help the small groan against the memory.

“You’ll be alright,” Nicholas told him softly.

But Seiji was sure he wouldn’t be.

Because other memories were surfacing too. Like the flurry of clothes he’d torn clumsily off himself. And— _oh god—_ he thought he remembered seeing that nightgown again, the one from their pajama bargain. Nicholas hadn’t tried to put him in _that,_ had he? But, no, Seiji vaguely recalled Nicholas keeping the lingerie away from him and proffering blue pajamas instead.

“Last night…” Seiji said haltingly, something like panic clawing up his spine. “Did I do anything?”

“You did lots of things.”

“What…what did I do? I don’t—I can’t remember much of last night.” But what he did remember was not reassuring at all.

“Not surprising, you were pretty fucked up. You go all out, don’t you?”

“What did I do?” Seiji repeated with some urgency.

“Oh, something super big,” Nicholas said, matter-of-fact. “A breach of contract, even.”

Seiji’s blood froze. What had he done? He couldn’t remember—everything was so heavy and blurred in his memory. But he _did_ remember taking off his clothes and reaching for a frilly black gown and he thought he remembered Nicholas…Nicholas so close to him that he could feel that closeness all across him. He hadn’t— _done_ something, had he? He couldn’t remember. But there wasn’t technically anything in the contract about _that_ sort of thing—

“You slept all over the bed,” Nicholas said succinctly. “Including on my side. Huge violation of the contract. _And_ you tried to come in here with your shoes on, even with a warning.”

“Oh,” Seiji said, relief washing over him. He let himself sink back into the pillows. Nicholas’s hand was gone now. He missed it. “Do you plan to file for legal action?”

“I can’t tell if you’re being serious or cute.”

“I don’t do cute.”

“No, I’m not going to sue you over sleeping on my side of the bed. Anyway, I slept on your side too, so could I even sue you for that?”

Seiji shook his head. He didn’t want to think about the legal implications of stealing the wrong side of the bed and forcing Nicholas into the other. He considered it anyway, unable to abandon the train of thought. They could consult with a lawyer but Seiji thought that he was relatively inculpable. If Nicholas had moved him enough to fit in the bed at all, surely he could have moved Seiji to the _proper_ side of the bed. The ghost of a memory pushed at his legs—Nicholas shoving them aside to climb into bed next to him, followed by the slide of his legs against Nicholas’s. And…

_Happy birthday, Seiji._

“You called me Seiji,” Seiji said, startled at the resurfaced memory. It was the first time Seiji had heard his husband call him by his name so simply. The _first_ first time didn’t count, it had happened so long ago. But it was the reason Nicholas refused him now. “Last night, you said my name.”

“You asked me to.”

“Will you call me Seiji again? Or are we back to Katayama now that my birthday’s over?”

Nicholas’s sweet laugh softened the blow of the mattress shifting as he stood from the bed to leave Seiji.

“You asked me years ago not to soil your name.”

“I know, you won’t let me forget.”

“But you did forget last night. You asked me to call you your proper name and I told you to repeat that request when you sobered up.”

“Why?”

“Because drunk people don’t always do or say things they really mean.”

Drunk people also, apparently, sometimes had enough inhibitions lifted to ask for things that were far more difficult to voice when sober. Seiji scowled at Nicholas but his eyes were too sore to hold the gaze, so he let them slip shut with a sigh.

“You’re my husband,” he said. “I’d prefer for you to call me my proper name.”

“Alright, Seiji, what do you think?”

“Of what?”

“Of that.”

“It’s fine.”

“Only fine? I’ll let you change your mind, we can always go back to Katayama.”

“No,” Seiji said. “It’s…good. I like it,” he admitted quietly.

“Well,” another brief touch to his hair, “rest up, Seiji.”

Seiji’s heart skipped a beat at the name, as it had each time Nicholas had called him by it. He buried his face into his pillow, knowing hiding it would not solve the unbearable heat he felt across his cheeks but unwilling to expose them to the empty room.

It was becoming apparent to Seiji that he had a problem.


	36. Chapter 36

Seiji tread carefully around Nicholas in the days following his birthday. Not because he thought Nicholas was particularly upset at him for drinking, though Seiji wouldn’t blame him if he were—Seiji had been a burden on Nicholas that he hadn’t signed up to deal with, an echo of a childhood spent with burdens he’d never asked for. But it wasn’t Nicholas that Seiji worried about setting off. It was his own strangely heated skin and the heartbeat he was more aware of now than he’d ever been in his twenty-one years of life.

Seiji simultaneously was drawn to any room in the house he heard his husband puttering about in and wanted to flee it immediately when Nicholas looked to him with a smile and an easy _hey._ But no matter where he fled or how late he stayed at the office to avoid heartbeats and headaches, Seiji couldn’t escape spinning thoughts of Nicholas’s smiles and freely given touches.

Nicholas knocking a shoulder into his.

Nicholas pulling Eugene into a hug.

Nicholas’s hand overlapping his on a leather-clad shoulder.

Nicholas and Eugene asleep on the couch together.

Nicholas pulled in close to him and pulling away…

Shame and humiliation and stinging pride all jumbled together at that last thought. Try as he might, Seiji could not recall the entirety of his twenty-first birthday. Perhaps that was for the best. The memories he did have of it were enough to knot his stomach in all sorts of unpleasant ways. Nicholas never spoke of it either. Of Seiji’s botched seduction and Nicholas’s kind declination.

Seiji shook his head, forcing his eyes and thoughts to focus back on his screen. He had work that needed to get done.

Seiji’s phone rang, instantly distracting him again from work. Nicholas. Of course.

“What do you need?” Seiji asked into his phone.

“Hello to you too,” Nicholas responded brightly. “I just wanted to call and let you know to eat if you haven’t already, I won’t be home until late.”

Seiji glanced at the clock. It _was_ getting late. He didn’t mention to Nicholas that he wasn’t home. But his silence must have been telling anyway.

“You’re at the office, aren’t you?” Nicholas’s question was delivered with light exasperation. “How many times this week is this now that you’ve stayed late at the office?”

“You’re not at home either,” Seiji pointed out.

“Yeah, because I’m out with _friends,_ Seiji. It’s not good for you to work so much.”

“It’s efficient.”

“You’re a person, not a robot. You should come dancing with us.”

“Dancing?” Seiji asked, mind flitting back to a warm kitchen and warmer body against his.

“Yeah, dancing. We’re going to visit our old club and some old friends there, you should come,” he repeated. 

Dancing. With friends. Nicholas didn’t specify and Seiji didn’t ask, but Eugene would probably be there. Dancing. With Nicholas.

Or maybe it was Bobby that Nicholas was going dancing with. Seiji could see Nicholas spinning around a room with the short, giggling man. It was something friends would do, Seiji could see it now. Friends danced. Like Nicholas and Seiji had danced.

How many times had Nicholas incredulously asked _don’t you have any friends?_ when Seiji hadn’t understood the appeal of sleepovers or hugs? How many times had Seiji scoffed at the question? But perhaps Nicholas had a point. Perhaps Seiji just didn’t understand that sort of thing. Perhaps he was no good at recognizing it either.

“I should finish this up,” Seiji said. “But enjoy your dancing.”

He hung up the phone and tried again to focus on his work. Work he really _should_ finish up. But confused thoughts about dancing cluttered up his mind and made it difficult to concentrate.

Nicholas was simply a friendly man. Seiji had seen it himself; the way Nicholas could and would talk with anyone, the way he got along with them, from the men at Coste Motor to Seiji’s own parents. It wasn’t out of his usual breadth of social engagement to act as he did with Seiji. It was hardly even strange that he played up the marriage aspect of their relationship, calling Seiji pet names. It was much like the way he’d sometimes refer to Robert as _Boss._

It was only that his behavior towards Seiji now was so different than it had been at the start of their relationship that Seiji had noticed it. He thought…the way Nicholas laughed when they talked and clapped his shoulder as they walked together and danced with him in the kitchen and sat with him when he felt sick—he thought that made them friends. Before now, he’d never been able to place a label on what they’d become.

No, Seiji _didn’t_ have any friends. He hadn’t even recognized when Nicholas had become one. He could tell that Nicholas no longer detested him, but he’d heard the way Nicholas talked about Eugene, seen the way the two were together. The love between them was a worn and familiar thing. Seiji didn’t have friends. He didn’t know what they looked like. Jesse had seen it, though. That Nicholas and Eugene had something more with each other.

It wasn’t fair for him to feel resentful for his own miscategorizations. It was absurd to think Nicholas’s compliments towards him had ever meant anything more than Eugene’s. Bitterly, Seiji considered the idea that it was a game the two of them played—seeing which of them could pile higher praises upon him without him suspecting their resentment toward him for stealing Nicholas.

It was an uncomfortable thought. Seiji did not enjoy being mocked, especially when he couldn’t discern the difference between mockery and sincerity. But more than that, a sense of unease washed over him as he considered the men’s boisterous laughter as malicious. The same feeling he got when he considered telling his parents that he’d rather not attend a party or whenever he had to report back on his status with the Kane deal. Guilt. He felt guilty suspecting the two of being capable of the sort of malice he might have expected from Jesse. Maybe it made him a fool, but he couldn’t quite believe that either crafted their words with the express intent to hurt him in such an underhanded way.

And it certainly made him a fool that he didn’t want to assume the worst in them. He didn’t want to resent Nicholas or hate Eugene. He didn’t want to _feel_ anything for either of them. He wanted to return to his organized life and the plan he’d made for himself, never straying off the path or losing focus or letting himself forget that his life was written up in a contract. It wasn’t real. He didn’t want it to be real.

Seiji needed to get away for a time and collect himself, distract himself from this and convince his emotions back into disinterest.

When the phone rang again, Seiji expected to answer it to more pestering about dancing and friends and not working too much.

“Robert,” Seiji said, answering as soon as he saw the name on his screen. “How can I help you?”

“I’m sorry to bother you so late. Have you got a moment?”

“Of course.”

“We’re having some trouble with the Jenkinses.”

“Again?” Seiji sighed. “What is it this time?”

“More miscommunication, I’m afraid. They’re impossible to reach consistently and I’m never sure what has and hasn’t gone through to them. If I didn’t want their minds on my team so badly, I’d give it up. As is, I think I’ll have to send someone to them, work this thing out directly. Since you’ve been working with us on this, I wanted to let you know.” Robert sighed. The Jenkins deal was especially prone to drawing out sighs. The women were entirely pleasant, but they were also entirely impossible to communicate with, and they weren’t keen on the idea of moving anywhere more convenient in order to work with Coste Motor. And therein lay the issue. “Though, who I can send to such a remote location so close to the holidays, I don’t know.”

“And you’ll need to send someone who can be trusted to handle the negotiations alone, with no communication back to Coste,” Seiji pointed out slowly, considering.

“Yes,” Robert agreed, “there is that. Do you have anyone in mind for the assignment?”


	37. Chapter 37

Nick had ended up crashing at Bobby’s place after their visit to the San Remo Ballroom with Eugene and Dante for the social they’d been invited to by some old friends. He’d sent Seiji a text, but he knew the guy didn’t understand sleepovers. He thought it was bad form to sleep at friends’ when you had a spouse at home, but he hadn’t thought to forbid it in the contract—probably because there’d never been a danger of Jesse having friends that wanted him over—so he couldn’t forbid it. But Nick _did_ expect a scowl or a disappointed huff after work—for the sleepover and the twice-worn suit he’d gone to the office in alike.

But Seiji was out when Nick got home. His car was in the driveway but the man himself was nowhere to be found. Nick half wondered if someone had broken in and kidnapped his husband. It really wasn’t like Seiji to be _out_ , it was like him to be _working late_ , but his car was here, which meant he wasn’t at the office.

Seiji didn’t exactly have friends—not ones that he wanted to see outside of work or Nick’s company. Not anyone that would pick him up from home so they could hang out. Maybe he’d gone to dinner with his parents, Nick reasoned, dipping his head back into Seiji’s empty office, just to be sure he really wasn’t here.

It was on his third pass through the bedroom that Nick noticed something on his nightstand that definitely wasn’t usually there. Curiously, Nick went to it, reaching out to rub the petal of a red rose between his fingers. There was a vase of them, which didn’t fit at all. Were they from Seiji? Grand gestures weren’t like him. And why would he give _Nick_ roses? But they were here, on his nightstand. He just wondered where _Seiji_ was.

Nick frowned at the flowers—as if they could give him the answer—considering why they were here when Seiji wasn’t. When his gaze lowered from the explosion of red petals down to the ornamental glass vase, he saw that the flowers might just be able to answer him after all. The edge of a folded sheet of heavy, cream-colored paper that was just pretentious enough for Seiji to use unironically caught his eye, tucked partially beneath the vase. Nick tugged it free curiously, unfolding it to find the neatly swooping handwriting of one Seiji Katayama.

_Nicholas,  
A last minute complication came up with the Jenkins deal and I’m needed to help sort it out. I anticipate being out of reach for a week; the Jenkinses live in a rather remote location in the mountains with no reception, which is part of the problem, I’m sure you remember.  
Mother sends her love and these roses. Try to keep them alive, won’t you? And try to keep yourself in good health as well, I suppose. Remember to eat well while I’m gone; you cannot live on pizza and burgers, no matter what Eugene says.  
Tepidly yours,  
Seiji _ _  
_

Nick read the letter several times.

The roses made sense, then, if they were from Mrs. Katayama. And the car in the driveway made sense too. Seiji wouldn’t have wanted to leave it at the airport. He must have asked his mother to take him instead.

“If you’d just called,” Nick said to the letter, “I would have dropped you off.”

Nick checked his phone to make sure he had no missed messages, but Seiji really had left for a week with nothing but this note. Nick huffed at the sign-off. Not _warmly_ yours, only luke-warmly yours. Displeasedly yours. Reluctantly yours.

_Tepidly yours, Seiji._

Seiji. What an anomaly. Nick wasn’t really sure what to do with him. But at least they were getting along. More and more lately, Nick found that Seiji’s meticulous organization and nagging advice and terse words weren’t intolerable. More and more lately, Nick didn’t find his husband callously cold or heartless.

Heartless or not, Seiji wasn’t a husband Nick had wanted, and he was ready to take advantage of the week without constant nagging and tiptoeing and perfect neatness.

But even without Seiji to snap at him about being too loud, Nick tread more quietly across the floor than he would have a year ago. And even without Seiji here to enforce the hamper rule, Nick abided by it and found himself making sure all his dirty clothes ended up in it rather than on the floor. Even when he went to bed that night, Nick stayed on his side. He held the duck pillow and turned away from the empty side, which was strangely cold without Seiji there with his stupid socks or reading glasses or quiet work or books before lights-out.

In the morning, Nick was surprised to find all the lights off and the kitchen free of the scent of Seiji’s morning tea or the rustle of newspaper or morning news. Nick had to laugh at himself as he stood in the kitchen alone, groggy but getting over his confusion at the empty house.

“It hasn’t even been a year and I’m already used to the married life,” he said aloud. There was no one but him to hear it.

* * *

Nick wasn’t used to eating alone anymore. Sure, he didn’t always eat _with_ Seiji, exactly. But usually, Seiji was in the house when he ate. And, lately, they’d synced up their eating schedules to an extent. Dinners especially, Nick was now accustomed to spending in Seiji’s company.

He finished clearing his lonely dinner plate and decided he’d see if Bobby wanted to come over tomorrow night as he made his way toward the bedroom. He paused on the way there, peeking into Seiji’s office out of habit.

 _Heading to bed,_ he almost said to the empty chair. Seiji so often needed to be reminded to come to bed. He liked to bring his work with him, but it was at least a step closer than sitting here in his crisply pressed shirts and straight-backed chair. The deeper he got into the Kane deal, the less Seiji seemed to sleep. The man was meticulous and organized and loved his schedules—when they’d first wed, Nick had found Seiji in bed at 9:30 every night. Last week, though, Nick had woken up at 1:00 and found the bed as empty as it would be tonight. Only, at the time, Seiji had just been here, in this room, and not out in the mountains. Nick hoped he was remembering to sleep while he was there.

Before turning away from the empty office, Nick’s eye snagged on a familiar little book, bound in soft leather. Seiji’s journal. Nick had noticed him writing in it a lot, but it was never left laying around. Wandering to it, Nick swept his fingers across the cover. Seiji must have left it—this business trip was a last-minute one and his mind must have been on more important things, what with packing and prepping for a week of negotiations while being completely offline from the outside world. The journal looked like it had been poised for packing but, ultimately, forgotten. It looked lonely here. Nick picked it up and took it to bed with him, depositing it on Seiji’s nightstand. _There_ , that looked a little less forlorn.

But the little leather notebook looked slightly out of place still and Nick realized it was because an untidy corner poked out from between the pages. It wasn’t like Seiji to allow his belongings to be anything but perfectly neat, and the fact that he’d jammed something between the pages of his journal, that it wasn’t even securely tucked there with edges and corners all lined up…it stuck out to Nick. He reached for the notebook, curious.

 _Seiji will kill me if he finds out I looked through his diary,_ Nick thought. Or, more likely, sue him. Last-minute, Nick decided against snooping, but he’d been so close and had withdrawn his hand so abruptly that he knocked it off the nightstand and sent the entire book careening to the floor.

“Shit!” Nick swore, diving to collect it. None of the pages looked bent, but the corner was no longer poking out from between them when Nick closed the book up. He scanned the floor and found what that corner had to belong to, even if it didn’t make much sense.

Carefully, Nick knelt to retrieve the picture that had fallen from the journal. He recognized it. The picture from their Paris tour, Nick’s mouth pressed against Seiji’s cheek, one arm around his waist and the other hand holding Seiji’s face in place. He remembered the moment it was taken, remembered Seiji’s displeasure, and the woman’s slight giggle as she snapped a photo of his kiss. Remembered doing it just to piss Seiji off a little. He _knew_ this picture was anything but genuine. But it didn’t look hard-edged and mean. Seiji’s face was just surprised enough to soften anger into confusion that might have turned into a startled smile the moment after this picture was snapped. Nick knew it _hadn’t_ turned into a smile at all. But the picture told a story of might-have-beens, not the strict truth of his memory.

But why was Seiji carrying this around tucked into his diary? Nick hadn’t thought of this picture since he’d sent it to Seiji to get printed with their wedding photos. He hadn’t noticed that the picture hadn’t been among the stills from their wedding that had arrived in beautiful frames a week later. He’d hung up every one of them and never noticed this one was missing from them. Had it been here, in this diary, the whole time?

Nick didn’t know. And he didn’t know what it might mean. And he didn’t think he should have seen this at all. So he tucked it away in the journal, near the back, where it had fallen from. The pages here were full of meticulous handwriting already. Nick didn’t read any of it. He closed the pages over the picture and replaced the diary on the nightstand and tried not to think about it at all as he drifted off to sleep in his cold bed.


	38. Chapter 38

Nick wasn’t expecting visitors, so when a knock came at his door after work on a Tuesday of all evenings, he assumed it was a package and didn’t hustle to open it. The knock pounded again, more insistent. Then came several jabs at the doorbell.

“Alright, alright,” Nick called, “I’m coming!”

“Do you always leave people at your doorstep for ages?” Jesse Coste asked. “Or only in the winter when it’s freezing? That’s terrible manners, you know.”

Nick didn’t think his manners were as bad as Jesse’s when his so-called little brother pushed past him and into his house without permission.

“Uh. Can I help you?” Nick asked dubiously. He noticed that Jesse took off his shoes without having to be told and found himself frowning down at the shiny boots. Jesse must have had a clause about shoes in his contract with Seiji too.

“Dad sent me over. Like I’m some errand boy,” Jesse’s voice dripped in disdain and his face conveyed severe displeasure with the idea and the treatment alike. “You requested some schematics?”

“Oh! Yes, I did. Didn’t expect to get them so fast. Where…uh, where are they?”

Jesse strode into the dining room and heaved a briefcase side bag Nick hadn’t previously noticed onto the table. He undid the clasps and neatly pulled out a bundle of paper, which he handed to Nick. Nick took it and expected—and hoped for—Jesse to leave. Jesse did not leave.

“So this is your house,” he said, looking around. He’d never been before. Of course he hadn’t. Why would Nick or Seiji invite him here? “How quaint.”

“No gates or fountains, but it suits us fine,” Nick replied, defensive of his home suddenly. He didn’t like the way Jesse looked around it, eyes catching on every picture and detail of decoration and design. He felt distinctly judged.

“Us?” Jesse repeated with odd emphasis. “You and Seiji are getting along, then? How sweet.”

“Thanks for the schematics,” Nick said, meaning _you can leave now._

“Well, let’s see a tour of the place, then.”

“I don’t think there’s any reason for that.”

“We’re family, Nick,” Jesse said—when had Jesse started calling him _Nick?_ —and shed his coat to drape over a dining room chair carelessly. “I think it’s only polite you show me your home now that I’m here.”

“I’ve never seen yours,” Nick countered lamely.

“Would you like to?”

Nick wouldn’t, really. But he wasn’t sure if that was what Jesse wanted him to admit so he kept his mouth shut.

“It’s just a place to be, anyway,” Jesse continued in a bored tone of voice.

Just a place to be.

Nick recognized that phrase, that thinking. He remembered Seiji saying that his penthouse had never been meant to be permanent. Jesse’s residence would be the same, Nick was sure. It set him in a sour mood to think of. Shiny boots in the entryway and an in-between place to be until—until something that, for Jesse, would never come.

_Good,_ Nick thought irritably.

He wanted Jesse out of his house but the asshole traipsed through it without a care for what Nick wanted, taking hold of the railing to the stairs that led downstairs.

Nick supposed he’d better go after Jesse to make sure he didn’t do anything down there alone. He took a moment to fling his head back in a soundless groan. Then down the stairs he went.

Jesse had found the game room with the pool table. He ran his fingers along the cover, a _shhhhhh_ sound hissing a trail behind them.

“Seiji let you get a pool table? I’m surprised, I would have thought they were too tacky for his tastes.”

“It was a gift. From the Hameeds.”

“Do you play?”

Nick tried to assess if there was another question there—perhaps one about hustling or gambling—but he couldn’t find it if there was. So he shrugged and told the truth.

“Nah, I don’t really get it. I’ve got a friend that’s tried to teach me on it a couple times so it’s fun enough to have around but it mostly stays covered.”

Jesse nodded and moved on, scanning over the TV and the game consoles Nick had splurged on when he’d realized he could. _Those_ weren’t nearly so dusty as the table.

Jesse found his way to the array of photographs framed on the wall down here and Nick went to join him, smiling fondly despite himself at all the memories wrapped up in this monstrosity of interconnected frames. All the moments displayed in it, picking each one out with Bobby, the day spent hanging all of these moments—and more—up with Seiji. There were lots of memories here. All good ones.

“That’s Eugene,” Nick said, smile widening into a grin when he saw what picture Jesse’s eye had caught on.

“I know.”

“Right, you’ve met him,” Nick remembered. He just hadn’t expected that Jesse would actually remember the names of any of his friends. “Well, I’ve gotta say, his hips _don’t_ lie. If you ever get the chance, ask him to dance for you, he’s pretty good—he taught a class to the old ladies at the San Remo Ballroom I did janitorial work at back in the day after I mentioned his moves to the gals.”

Jesse’s eyes left the picture to cut sharply at Nick. “Why would I have the chance to do that?”

“Teach the gals a dance—oh, ask Eugene to show you his skills?” Nick laughed. “I don’t know. You wouldn’t, I guess. But he’s great. He’s the reason we kept the pool table, too.”

“How interesting.” Jesse’s mood had turned as sour as Nick’s had gone upstairs. If he wanted to leave, Nick wasn’t stopping him.

“Yeah,” Nick agreed because he wasn’t sure what else _to_ do. “He’s basically the best friend I could have asked for.” Him and Bobby.

“Shirtless dancing and private pool lessons, sounds like a treat.”

“You don’t even know the half of it. But I’m sure you’ve got stories, too, goofing off with friends and stuff,” Nick replied without thinking.

“Hardly,” Jesse sneered. God, he looked a bit like Seiji when he did that. Or, more of, Nick could imagine Seiji responding with the same syllables said with the same inflection and same expression to this same statement from Nick.

“Don’t any of you have friends?” Nick asked.

“Of course I have friends,” Jesse said hotly. “Do you know how many people wish they were me? How many people clamor for my attention?”

“Yeah, sure…but that’s not really the same as having friends, is it? I mean, a guy like Eugene is different from—,”

“With Seiji gone on his business trip, I doubt it’s _friendship_ you’re hurting for.” Jesse’s voice had suddenly gone nasty—it didn’t surprise Nick to hear the nastiness, but it _did_ surprise him to realize it had only just appeared. He hadn’t heard it at all from Jesse tonight until just now. “Of course, with Seiji, you get about the same out of him here as gone. He’s not overly generous with sex, is he? And I’d bet he took advantage of the situation, too, and struck more from your contract than he and I had bargained for.”

“If that was supposed to be an insult, I think you’ve mistakenly painted a target on a mirror, Jesse.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that it’s gross for you to be proud of the amount of sex you weaseled into your contract, not pathetic of me to be happy with having none in mine.”

Jesse blinked at Nick, startled.

“None?” he asked, as if he still hadn’t gotten the insult. Nick wanted to punch him. “You mean—at _all?”_

“None,” Nick repeated firmly, crossing his arms before his fists got the better of him.

“What the fu…” Jesse uttered under his breath, words trailing off as he stared at Nick with genuine bafflement.

_“What the fuck_ yourself,” Nick snapped. “What the _fuck_ is wrong with you wanting sex with the flimsy consent of a contract? That’s not freely given, that’s not _right_ —it’s fucked up that you ever wanted that, but don’t confuse me for you because I _don’t_ want that.”

“Sex isn’t a thing you do because you _want_ it,” Jesse said incredulously, “it’s a thing you do to _get_ what you want.”

That stopped Nick dead. His arms had been uncrossing, fist already furled, but Jesse sounded so nonplussed and his face had fallen from any sort of sneer to a look of pure confusion, and it put Nick at a loss for what to do. He just stared back at Jesse and felt like he was looking at an alien.

Jesse shifted uncomfortably as Nick stared at him blankly, and Nick was suddenly angry at him for this too. Jesse didn’t deserve to be uncomfortable about this, not after all the damage he’d done to Seiji.

“You know,” Nick said, voice hard. Not as hard as his fists would have been, though. “I had a friend that loved you and Seiji together. He followed the story from the moment it dropped and talked non-stop about how perfect you two were. So pretty and cool—a better match couldn’t have been made. You _looked_ perfect together. But broken glass can look pretty too. Until you get close. Until you touch it and get cut. You two are the furthest thing from perfect I’ve ever seen. You were broken—you were always so fucking broken it’s a miracle Seiji didn’t shatter while he was with you. Do you know how fucked up your little games were? Do you even realize how much you hurt him with all that bullshit about bargaining and fair exchange even if he couldn’t see it? He deserved better than all the manipulation he got from you. I just wish everyone could see what a snake you are.”

“If I’m a snake,” Jesse hissed, “then I’m not the only one. Seiji’s just as—as _broken_ as I am, I don’t know how you’ve missed it.”

“Maybe. But you—oh, man, _you_ are just beyond repair.”

Jesse looked like he’d just received a slap in the face, which was plenty satisfying for Nick. What was it the librarian who oversaw detentions at his old school used to say? _You’ll solve more problems with words than fists, Nicholas._ Maybe she was right.

“I’ll take my leave now,” Jesse said with a tight jaw, already whirling around to go.

“Finally.”

* * *

The week dragged on, Nick’s mood only making it crawl along slower. He kept thinking about Seiji and Jesse, which kept renewing his righteous anger. And it was worse because, of the two, Jesse was the one Nick kept seeing. He never acknowledged Nick, but that didn’t assuage the heavy, nagging feeling in his bones every time Nick passed him in the office or stood in silence with him in the elevator. So much of their conversation had replayed in his mind all week long and none of it ever made Nick feel anything but worse. Worse about Jesse’s treatment of Seiji. But, sometimes, seeing Jesse’s head turn efficiently from him when they accidentally made eye contact and Jesse noticed who he was, Nick felt just a little bit bad for him too. Seiji was no snake, no matter what Jesse said. Nick had been through the contract process with Seiji too and he’d been meticulously fair. But when hot water got thrown on freezing glass, whose fault was it, really, when the glass broke? In Nick’s experience, the fault was with the person with the bucket.

Nick didn’t really want to think about it. He didn’t want to feel sympathy for Jesse when he’d seen all the little ways he’d left lasting wounds on Seiji. How many of Nick’s words had Seiji treated like daggers because of Jesse? How often had Nick been accused of something awful because it was what Jesse would have done? He’d lost count.

It would be better if he could just _see_ Seiji. He was sure seeing the man in the flesh in all his nagging glory, perfectly alright, for all that he was a little odd, would make Nick’s sympathy stop running wild. He didn’t like worrying over Seiji. But he didn’t know when his husband would return.

Seiji really could have been more specific in his letter. _A week_ could mean anything. Leave it to Nick’s husband to be meticulous in everything he did but forget to pass on important details to Nick.

Pulling out his phone, Nick selected a number and called. Seiji was, allegedly, unreachable. But there was another Katayama he could ask, even if it wasn’t _his_ Katayama.

“Hi Mari!” Nick greeted when the phone was picked up.

“Nicholas,” she said, not unkindly but clearly a little surprised. “What can I do for you?”

“Nothing, nothing. I just wanted to say thank you for the flowers, they really brighten up the room.”

“I’m glad you like them. I’m glad Seiji delivered them properly—you should have heard him, he kept insisting that I shouldn’t waste the money, you wouldn’t be able to keep them alive anyway. But you know how Seiji gets, I swear he can be so fussy. He seemed convinced you’d wither away as surely as the flowers if he took a week away from you.”

“He did mention something condescending about trying to keep myself alive in the letter he left me,” Nick agreed, laughing. “He _can_ be such a fusspot.”

“Yes,” she said with a lingering note of humor. “But thank you for looking after him anyway.”

“I don’t,” Nick said at once, a mite defensively. Then he caught himself, remembering who he was talking to, and cleared his throat awkwardly. “Any more than he looks after me, I mean.”

“He’s a good kid. Man, now, I suppose.” Mari had something more to say, so Nick waited while she figured out how to say it. “Seiji hasn’t mentioned since, but at his birthday party…he meant it didn’t he? That he doesn’t like parties.”

Nick hesitated, wondering how the hell he was meant to answer this. There was the truth. And there was the way Seiji would want him to smooth this over for him.

“Seiji doesn’t love crowds or chaos, you know him,” Nick said lightly, carefully. “Parties aren’t really his thing.”

“Of course, that makes sense.” She sounded a little sad. Like she thought she ought to have known already. Nick thought she ought to have. He didn’t say as much, but nor did he assure her that Seiji was happy to go to _her_ parties. “Thank you for telling me.”

“Sure thing. And, while we’re on the topic, I was thinking he and I might sit out the holiday festivities this year. Spend Christmas and New Years together, just us, you know?”

“I’ll make a note to get your presents to you before Christmas,” she confirmed.

“Great. Sorry, one more thing before I let you go—I actually have a question for you too…you wouldn’t happen to know when the fusspot’s coming home, would you?”

Mari paused before answering.

“You mean Seiji didn’t tell you? How odd, he was so worried about leaving you…In any case, Nicholas,” she said warmly, “you’ll have him back tomorrow.”

A prickle of warmth caught at the base of Nick’s spine and shot up it, heating the back of his neck. Mari’s fond voice, the way she phrased it—it all made it sound like she thought Nick missed Seiji a lot. And who could blame her? Nick had called just to ask her when her son was flying back into Connecticut. To anyone else, wouldn’t it sound like there was actually some affection in the marriage?

“Cool,” Nick managed gruffly.

“I’m picking him up at the airport at eight tomorrow night. Would you like me to send you his flight information?”

“Uh, yeah. If you wouldn’t mind, that’d be great. And, actually, I can get him,” Nick offered on an impulse.

“I’m sure he’ll like that,” Mari said. Nick wasn’t so sure. But it was too late to take back the words now.


	39. Chapter 39

Seiji’s phone buzzed in with dozens of messages when he turned it on as he collected his luggage. He didn’t bother reading any of them yet, making his way swiftly through the airport to the pickup lanes where his mother would be waiting for him.

“Seiji!”

Seiji spun at the sound of his name.

_I should have read through my messages._

Nicholas was waving wildly and jogging over to him, a stupid grin on his face.

“Seiji,” he repeated, halting in front of him and casually sliding one of Seiji’s bags from his shoulder to take for himself. “You walked right past me.”

“I wasn’t expecting you,” Seiji replied honestly. “Is my mother—,”

“She’s perfectly fine, I just decided to help her out with some chores this weekend. Like picking you up. Come on, I’ll take you to the car.”

“I don’t understand why you’re here,” Seiji repeated but followed Nicholas.

“And I don’t understand why your letter told me basically nothing important.”

“I told you I was on an important trip and that I planned to return. What more did you want?”

“A return date? A goodbye? You could have called me, you know.”

“You were with Eugene.”

“So you left a letter for me to find instead.” Yes, Seiji _had_ left a letter for Nicholas to find instead of having his call ignored or, possibly worse, summon Nicholas away from Eugene out of some sense of duty. There wasn’t anything in their contract about driving each other to the airport. “Let me tell you,” Nicholas continued with a husky sort of laugh, “it was really something coming home to find flowers and a letter on my nightstand. I didn’t know if it was a love confession or a goodbye for good.”

“Obviously, it was neither,” Seiji snapped. But he felt heat pulse across his chest, creep up his neck. He hadn’t considered what it would look like.

“Obviously,” Nicholas agreed. They’d made it to the parking garage, but Seiji stopped short.

“That’s _my_ car,” he said.

“Yup.” Nicholas dangled the keys in front of Seiji’s face and he snatched them.

“Why are you driving my car?” Perhaps there should have been something in the contract about _that._

“I thought you might like to drive it.” Nicholas shrugged. “But it’s cold as balls so we’d better keep the top up.”

When Nicholas was finished loading Seiji’s things into the trunk, they climbed into Seiji’s car, and the first thing Seiji did was lower the top.

“You can be so contrary,” Nicholas laughed. If Seiji wasn’t much mistaken, he looked rather as though he’d expected this. But Nicholas was wrong. Or not entirely correct.

Seiji hadn’t lowered the hood just to prove to Nicholas that he could. He needed the bite of cold air against his face as they drove. Either to soothe away the red heat in them or to disguise the blush as something else: a red whipped from the cold wind and nothing more.

Nicholas had come to pick him up. And he’d come in Seiji’s car because he’d thought Seiji would like to drive it. And he was right, Seiji _would_ like to drive it. He much preferred this arrangement to the one he’d expected—the one he himself had set up. But he wouldn’t admit that to his husband.

* * *

Coming home was better than Seiji had imagined.

Nicholas helped Seiji with his bags, keys jangling as he whipped them out of a pocket and pulled open the door. Seiji stalled in the doorway, struck by the warmth of the house and the realization that it had a scent he’d never noticed. Like fresh linens and old wood. It added to the warmth.

“Seiji,” Nicholas prodded verbally behind him, “Are you going to go in? Your shit’s not light, you know.”

“It should hardly be a problem for you,” Seiji noted, finally stepping over the threshold and out of his shoes. “I’ve seen your arms. If you can’t carry a couple pounds of electronic equipment and paper, then you must have atrophied at an alarming rate while I was gone.” Seiji turned to make sure Nicholas was taking his shoes off too. He was—happily kicking sneakers off into their usual heap at the door. “Did you eat everything Chef Diane prepared?”

“Did you sleep?” Nicholas countered.

“I’m not a child. I slept just fine.”

“And I ate just fine.” Nicholas shot him a grin and then hoisted up the bag he was carrying. “Where do you want this? Not that I couldn’t hold it for hours, ‘cause, you know, I have killer arms.” Nicholas’s grin broadened as he flexed his free arm ridiculously. Seiji made a point to give him an unimpressed look before turning away. It probably hadn’t been wise to comment on Nicholas’s body.

“In my office, please,” Seiji requested.

He unpacked his own bag into his bedroom, depositing dirty clothes into his hamper and tucking his suitcase back away. It was as he replaced his phone charger to the drawer of his nightstand that he noticed a sight that made a small worry in the back of his mind ease.

His journal.

Seiji brushed fingers over the cover, relieved to find it home and safe. He’d been worried he’d lost it on the plane somehow when he’d arrived and been unable to find it anywhere in his bags. So he’d only forgotten to pack it. That made sense, given how quickly he’d departed to open negotiations with the Jenkinses. It had just been here all week.

A new worry started to form in the pit of Seiji’s stomach. The journal had been here all week long, sitting in plain sight and with no protection on his nightstand. Seiji picked up his journal and flipped through its pages, either looking for proof that Nicholas had decided to snoop or anything incriminating that he might have found in it. Or both. The pages sprang open eagerly to reveal a familiar picture that Seiji had yet to return to his desk, though he had purchased a new frame.

The pit in his stomach turned from worry to anger as he plucked the picture out from between these pages. _Not_ the ones he’d previously shoved it between, which he’d come to recognize as the journal fell open so frequently to them and the trinket they held, making them as familiar as the photo itself.

Seiji was going to kill Nicholas. No, he was going to _sue_ him. This invasion of privacy was—

“Ah, shit, you noticed,” Nicholas said, stepping into their room and into Seiji’s path. “Before you get mad, just hear me out. I knocked it off your nightstand the other night, that’s all, I promise. I didn’t look inside or anything. But the, uh, that picture fell out of it.”

Nicholas looked awkward and apologetic, but Seiji wasn’t sure how much he believed that. He looked back down at the journal he still held in his hand. It was perfectly intact. But…but there was a small bundle of pages with corners that looked like they might have been softly folded over to hold a place in the book…or like they’d gotten smooshed down together in a fall.

“There’s nothing very interesting in here,” Seiji said, returning the picture to the pages he’d just torn it from and snapping the whole thing closed. “Notes about meetings and on propositions and ideas and the sort.”

“Then it’s a shame I didn’t read it,” Nicholas said seriously. “Sounds like it would have been a great bedtime story. Put me right to sleep.”

Seiji still wasn’t convinced he believed Nicholas, but it seemed plausible that he’d bumped Seiji’s nightstand. He’d been known before to drop things off his own nightstand, like the time he’d elbowed his glass of water off it in the middle of the night. Nicholas was a messy enough sleeper that even Seiji’s side might not have been safe from his limbs without Seiji there to encourage him to say in his own realm.

“If I find out you’re lying to me,” Seiji relayed, “it _will_ mean a lawsuit.”

“Fucking hell, you’re really something else, did you know that? I didn’t read it.” Nicholas’s eyes slid to the journal, and Seiji expected him to ask about the photo. He could see the question on the tip of his tongue, and Seiji actually had a suitable answer for it. Nicholas didn’t need to know how long ago Jesse had broken its frame. “Have you eaten?”

“I only—what?”

“Food, Seiji. Did you have any on the flight? Or before it?”

“No,” Seiji said slowly, “I didn’t.”

“Then I’ll put on some leftovers for you too. Diane made spaghetti with squash instead of noodles. It wasn’t half bad; I think you’ll definitely like it. Replacing things unnecessarily with vegetables is right down your alley.”

Nicholas left, presumably headed to the kitchen, and Seiji watched after him for a moment, feeling a little confused. Maybe Nicholas had meant to spare him the embarrassment of pointing out the photo and making him explain because he assumed it _meant_ something that Seiji had it tucked into his personal diary. The idea was a discomforting one. He didn’t need Nicholas’s sympathy, especially not about this. He didn’t want it. He didn’t want Nicholas to think—to know—to even _guess_ at the truth. It was humiliating. And pathetic. But after the display Seiji had put on after his birthday party, how could Nicholas _not_ at least be guessing?

“Seiji,” Nicholas’s voice rang through the house, “hurry up!”

Despite himself, Seiji’s mouth tugged up into a small smile at the summons. If he hadn’t known better, he might have assumed that he’d been missed. Returning the journal to his nightstand, he saw that the roses were still alive and well on Nicholas’s.

Seiji _did_ like the spaghetti, and he liked the quiet company of eating—not _with_ , but _near_ Nicholas. He’d missed Nicholas. He’d missed home. Being away had been good for him. It had shown him just how much he _had_ to miss.

A home and a husband.

And he actually _missed_ them. Instead of dreading his return to them. For that alone, Seiji had reason to be grateful. The business trip would have meant something entirely different to him if he’d married Jesse as per the original plan.

Seiji was lucky to have Nicholas, regardless of Nicholas’s feelings toward him. That’s what he’d come to understand during his days away from him. Seiji didn’t need Nicholas to love him. He only needed _this_.


	40. Chapter 40

Nicholas had come a long way in the months since coming to Coste Motor. Seiji knew that already. Knew that Nicholas actually paid attention to his tutors and put in the work to catch up to where he needed to be. But it was something else to see it in action.

Seiji sat in on a conference Nicholas had called with Robert’s support and watched with some measure of amazement as Nicholas took the floor and presented his proposal for a new line of Coste cars. A more affordable model, for the average person. Seiji wasn’t surprised that Nicholas’s first project was this one. He was still dealing with the mess Nicholas had made by asserting his opinions on affordability during the first meeting he’d ever attended.

But, here, Nicholas talked through his ideas with enthusiasm and solid rationale.

“I just don’t see that it’s realistic,” Kenneth—whom Seiji had heard Nicholas refer to as ‘an old curmudgeon’ on more than one occasion—said when Nicholas opened the floor to comments.

“Other companies have managed to provide quality cars for affordable prices, why can’t Coste Motor do the same?” Nicholas challenged.

“It’s about the brand,” Kenneth said, rubbing his white beard. “Other companies making their vehicles affordable to the masses is all well and good, but Coste cars are known for their quality. What you’re proposing would compromise the quality of our cars, it would go against what we’ve been building here. Our very integrity would be questioned.”

“Not so,” Seiji found himself saying. All eyes turned to him, none more surprised than the warm brown eyes at the head of the table. “Nicholas is proposing a line of cars that simplify the bells and whistles that aren’t necessary, features and builds that the average salaryman has no need for. Providing a simplified car is not the same as a poor quality car.”

“And thanks to Seiji’s hard work, Coste Motor has brought on just the team to help us design a simplified car that’s still sleek and in keeping with the quality Coste is known for.” Nicholas’s eyes crinkled at Seiji in a suppressed smile. Seiji nodded lightly in acknowledgment of the gratitude, though he didn’t fully deserve it. It was Robert who had deliberately sought to bring a team suitable to help achieve Nicholas’s goal into the company, and Seiji had only helped because it made sense for him to be involved too.

“The Jenkinses are very interested in this project,” Seiji confirmed, earning a stir. There was a reason Robert had wanted them badly enough to go through all the trouble it had taken to secure their partnership.

“Yes, but we’re known for our high-end vehicles, it’s a symbol, the blade of a Coste car,” Kenneth persisted.

“Then perhaps it’s time to change what our blade stands for,” Seiji said. “Who they represent.”

Nicholas beamed at him—a bright and brief flash of white teeth and sparkling eyes before he schooled his expression into something more appropriate for this meeting.

“Exactly,” he said. “We can broaden our label _and_ our profits.”

Nicholas segued neatly into the ever effective angle of money. More concerns were voiced, more counters provided. Seiji and the other representatives from Katayama Energy offered input about how to modify their motors to make them more affordable. Ideas of hybrids were tossed around. By the end of the meeting, nothing was decided and this project would clearly be years in the making. But Seiji could tell that Nicholas was willing to put in those years. And Seiji supposed it was the least he could do to stand by him in this.

"Why, Seiji,” Kenneth said, leaning across the table as the meeting concluded, “you seem to be rather fond of Nicholas."

"He's my husband, am I not supposed to like him?" Seiji asked, abashed to have to peel his eyes away from Nicholas to answer the older man. Kenneth chuckled.

“I suppose that’s true. You two will give us old-timers a world of trouble when you take over, won’t you?”

Seiji thought of Nicholas sitting on their bed and rubbing away the pounding in his head, talking about his life growing up. Thought about the afternoons he disappeared to go work on Eugene’s car. Thought about the way that he talked about money, in a mindful manner Seiji had thought odd from a man as disorganized as Nicholas until he’d realized why Nicholas was so mindful and aware in the specific ways he was. Seiji had never spent a lot of time worrying about the masses, the everyday people. But these days, he thought a lot about Nicholas. Nicholas, as he was now. And Nicholas, as he’d been the day Seiji had first met him. The problems of common men seemed so much closer now than they ever had before. And Seiji understood that Nicholas still held all those problems to him dearly, regardless of whether they were problems he faced himself any longer.

“We are a formidable pair,” Seiji said, standing. “You should steel yourself for a lot of changes in the coming years.”

Seiji waited as Nicholas finished packing up and they left the room together.

“Are you coming home or going back to the office?” Nicholas asked. Seiji checked the time. He ought to return to his work at Katayama Headquarters. But if he did, he’d be home late. “If you come home for dinner, we can try that dumb mushburger recipe.”

“It’s not my dinner night, is it?” Seiji asked, frowning at the slip of memory if it was indeed his turn.

“Nah, it’s mine. But you wanted to try it, didn’t you? And Chef Diane used your mushrooms in meal prep before you could make them because I highjacked your night with pizza.”

“Alright,” Seiji agreed hesitantly, waiting for a catch or a punchline. But there didn’t seem to be one. Nicholas clicked his fob and his car beeped open, still the same one Robert had given him months ago. Seiji unlocked his car too, parked next to Nicholas’s for this meeting. “I’ll see you at home.”

“Great. And Seiji?”

“Hm?”

“Thanks for backing me up in there.”

* * *

“You don’t have to eat it,” Seiji said, watching Nicholas dubiously raise a burger to his mouth, feeling amused at his look of absolute apprehension. “I know vegetable replacements aren’t particularly down _your_ alley.”

“How bad can it be?” Nicholas asked, trying to sound as though he believed it. “A burger’s a burger.”

Seiji stalled in eating his own dinner, pausing to watch Nicholas’s face as he took his first bite. Seiji thought the mushroom burgers had turned out quite well and was interested to see Nicholas’s reaction. Nicholas didn’t look nearly as content as he did when biting into a genuine burger, but he didn’t spit it out either.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Nicholas said after swallowing, kicking Seiji’s leg under the dining room table, which Nicholas had followed Seiji to after they’d made dinner together. “I’m not going to spit it out.”

“I didn’t think you would.”

“Liar. Anyway, I’ve had worse. Lucky for you, since you’re in the spray zone.”

Seiji couldn’t help the distaste on his own face at that particular visual. Nicholas laughed. Then they continued the meal in silence that grew into small conversations about work and their meeting today, and then onto the holidays, which were looming ever nearer.

“Coste and Katayama will both be hosting Christmas parties, of course, and it’s only polite that we go to both. New Year's Eve is easier, thankfully, because they’ve celebrated it together for years.”

“We’re not attending any of those,” Nicholas said, popping his last piece of burger into his mouth and wiping hands down his slacks. Seiji frowned at the uncouth maneuver but Nicholas didn’t even have the decency to appear abashed when he caught Seiji’s look.

“Wait.” Seiji’s mind had just let go of Nicholas’s poor manners enough to actually process what he’d said. “What do you mean we’re not attending any of them?”

“I mean that I already sent back our RSVPs declining to go, _and_ I let all parents know that we’re staying home for the holidays. They all understood that we wanted to spend our first Christmas and New Year's together alone, just the two of us.” Nicholas's sly grin indicated that he’d only fed them that line to get out of having to go to any events because…

“I don’t like parties,” Seiji said, softly and to himself.

“You don’t like parties,” Nicholas agreed.


	41. Chapter 41

“Dude,” Eugene said, looking at Nick like he was insane. “How have you _not_ gotten a present for your husband yet? Christmas is in two days.”

“I know,” Nick groaned, “it’s bad. But I hate shopping for him. He’s impossible. What could I get him that he can’t get himself? And he’s so organized and practical. If I don’t get him something he’ll actually use, he’ll throw it out.”

“Maybe,” Eugene said, thinking it over as he picked a handful of cheese fries from the platter between them. “But maybe not. I think he might hang onto whatever you got him because it’d be from you, you know?”

“Keeping it out of some sense of duty is almost worse than throwing it away,” Nick grumbled, trying not to think about what gifts of Nick’s Seiji had hung onto, against all odds. “I want to get him something he’d like.”

“What does Seiji like, then?” Eugene asked. “That’s always the place to start.”

“He likes his car. But it’s already perfect and if I touch it, he’ll kill me.”

“Could you get him accessories for it?”

“What? Like pink fuzzy dice?”

“Yes, that’s _obviously_ exactly what I’m suggesting you get Seiji. No, dumbass. What does he like about his car?”

“Driving it, mostly. With the top down.”

“Get him some sick shades for driving, then.”

“I don’t know…”

“A jacket? It’s gotta get cold with the hood down.”

Nick considered that one. Seiji had plenty of coats, but a good leather jacket would be perfect for that car. Nick’s mind slid months back in time, conjuring up the image of Seiji in his leather jacket. He’d look surprisingly good in it—Nick was sure he could find one for Seiji that would suit him, but he couldn’t imagine finding one that looked better on Seiji than his did.

“I can see on your face that that’s a no-go,” Eugene said. “Okay, what else does he like?”

“Uhh,” Nick had to think on it, picking through all the things Seiji did for work to find the ones he really enjoyed. “He likes playing his piano. And reading, he’s always got—oh! I think I’ve actually got an idea.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Nick grinned. “And Seiji might even like it.”

“You gonna be able to swing it in time for Christmas?”

“Mostly,” Nick said, thinking. “All the important parts anyway. You all done with your shopping?”

Eugene hesitated.

“Yeah.”

“That yeah didn’t really sound like a yeah. Who’d you forget?”

“No one.”

“Who do you feel bad about not getting anything for, then?”

“No one,” Eugene repeated.

“Sure. I completely believe that. Just get them a gift, you know you’ll feel bad if you don’t.”

“Maybe. Hey, how’re things with work?”

“I caught that subject change, Eugene,” Nick informed him, but then shrugged. “Things are going good, actually. I think I might honestly be able to make a difference here.”

“I knew you could. That meeting yesterday?”

“Went great. Seiji even took my side.”

“And you’re surprised by that?”

“I mean…a little, yeah. I didn’t really expect him to get involved all that much with my—what did he call it? Bleeding heart project.”

“Some of us were just built to bleed. Good on Seiji for joining in on the fun. Is that guy still sniffing around? Aiden?”

“Not for ages, thank fuck. I think he lost interest…but his old man’s still playing a stalling game with Seiji, so I don’t know what the plan is with them.”

“You don’t think…I mean, has your dad said anything about it?”

“My—Robert? Why would he know anything about what the Kanes are up to?”

“He wouldn’t, I guess. Just, he’s been around for a while, maybe he’s seen this sort of thing before and knows how to handle it.”

Nick considered it, then slowly shook his head.

“Seiji would be upset if I asked Robert for help.”

“Why?”

“He wants to do it all on his own. I keep saying he doesn’t have to but it’s like he thinks he’s got something to prove. As if he hasn’t already done tons for his company _and_ Coste Motor. And I don’t just mean marrying me. He did an internship in France, did I tell you?”

“You might have mentioned it once or twice. He’s got that picture you like above the bed, right?”

“Right. Well, Dmytro says his work there definitely scored Katayama a favorable reputation—that grew into a partnership—with that company. I don’t remember what it was, but I know it was something important. And he just cleared up the Jenkins deal in a _week_ alone and away from any contacts.”

“You sound impressed.”

“I—well, Seiji _is_ , you know…”

“Amazing?”

“The best.”

“You should tell him that sometime, it sounds like he needs to hear it.”

“He wouldn’t take _my_ word for it,” Nick scoffed. “Jesse made sure of that.”

“Jesse’s sabotaging Seiji’s trust in you?”

“Not specifically. It’s more like Jesse sabotaged Seiji’s trust in anyone and now he thinks everything I say has some sort of ulterior motive.”

“That doesn’t…” Eugene’s eyebrows drew near in concern, face looking troubled. “How does it make sense for Jesse to have acted that way with Seiji? I just thought—Jesse loves him, doesn’t he?”

Nick’s brain emptied out at the thought of that. The suggestion. Where had Eugene gotten _that_ idea?

“I sure hope Jesse never loved Seiji,” Nick said, words sharpened by anger. “If _that’s_ how he shows love, then his and Seiji’s whole thing was even worse than I thought.”

“It’s that bad, huh?”

“He’s the worst, Eugene. I know he acts all charming for his interviews and stuff, but trust me. You’d see through his act if you actually got to know him.”

“Maybe. That’s rough about Seiji. I hope he comes around. But actions speak louder than words, right? What’s your plan for his present, I wanna hear it.”

So Nick told him, but Eugene looked a little ill at ease for the rest of their late lunch together.


	42. Chapter 42

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By some absolute miracle of coincidence, it just so happens that the Christmas chapter gets to be published on Christmas. So Merry Christmas to those who celebrate and happy holidays to everyone, I hope you enjoy this hilariously relevant chapter 💜✨🎄

Seiji had been able to spend the day catching up on work. He had a slew of emails from Charles and was, once again, working at a proposal to try and satisfy the man. Aiden hadn’t reared his head in months, seeming to have left Nicholas alone. But Charles was still stalling. Why? Seiji couldn’t puzzle it out. But he was determined to push through this deal and land it. It was the first one that had been trusted to him to head and it was meant to have been an _easy_ one. Kane Industries had been chasing Katayama Energy for years, it would be a humiliation if Seiji somehow managed to lose the deal.

For the extra time to work alone, Seiji was grateful that Nicholas had informed all their friends and family that they would be spending the holidays at home. Allegedly, it was so they could spend time together, but Seiji had hardly seen Nicholas all day, busy with his work.

The extra hours of work, however, were not even the most agreeable part of the arrangement. The best part was the freedom from the anticipation of each event that usually lasted the entire second half of December—events and parties and small dinners and ‘personal’ brunches littered this time of year, and every one of them drained Seiji even before he attended them. Seiji didn’t like parties. They’d gained a recent tolerability with Nicholas there to entertain him and remind him that he was an adult, not an accessory. But, nevertheless, parties were never Seiji’s favorite things and nothing was likely to change that. Nicholas’s declination of all invitations on their behalf was, in Seiji’s opinion, an exceptional Christmas present.

“Seiji?”

“Hm?” Seiji hummed in question, not looking up from his computer. His eyes were straining, even with aid from his reading glasses.

“It’s almost three in the morning, love,” Nicholas said. Seiji didn’t bother correcting the awful nickname. “Come to bed.”

“It’s not…” _three in the morning?_ Seiji glanced at the clock in the top right corner of his computer and saw that Nicholas was correct. “How did…?”

“Time flies when you’re having fun,” Nicholas’s tone was dipped in irony. “Merry Christmas, by the way.”

“Oh. Yes, merry Christmas.”

“C’mon, bed now. Or Santa won’t come.”

“I need to finish this—,”

A hand fell on Seiji’s shoulder, finally spurring him to look away from his computer. He wished he hadn’t. Nicholas was simultaneously dressed in more and less clothing than he usually wore to bed—full pants, tartan red, but no shirt. Seiji averted his eyes, feeling his skin start to heat from even that brief sight. He really had to get this under control. Nicholas had a terrible habit of wandering about the house half-nude; if Seiji blushed like a virgin every time he saw Nicholas’s bare chest, he’d give himself away in no time at all. No matter that he _was_ a virgin. Maybe that would save him. If Nicholas noticed—Nicholas had to notice, Seiji’s blood did not believe in subtlety—perhaps he’d mistake Seiji’s awareness and discomfort as something more general, something related to inexperience and not something specific to Nicholas.

“You can finish it later,” Nicholas said, his other hand overlapping Seiji’s on the mouse and guiding it to put the monitor to sleep. Then Nicholas straightened. “Come to bed, it’s late.”

“You don’t have to stay up on my behalf,” Seiji tried to argue. Nicholas had been exiting the office but he stopped now to cross his arms and lean a hip in the doorjamb, considering Seiji.

“Funny thing,” he said. “I sleep better when I know you’re where you’re meant to be.”

“And where is that?”

“In bed,” Nicholas shrugged. “With me.”

It didn’t mean anything but it pulled Seiji to his feet anyway, enticing him away from his work to follow Nicholas back to their room. He was quick to get ready for bed, finding that he really was tired. Perhaps a little too tired.

“You’re wearing _that?”_ Nicholas asked, back in bed and sipping on a glass of water, ice clinking against the edges. Seiji noticed there was a matching glass of water on his own nightstand. Evidently, Nicholas had been to the kitchen before coming to Seiji’s office to collect him for bed.

“It’s cold,” Seiji said, frowning at Nicholas.

“I don’t think panties are gonna help with that, babe.”

“Don’t call me—panties?” Seiji looked at his bundle of pajamas—fleece-lined sweats and a long-sleeved shirt that was too stretched to wear out but too comfortable to throw out—and found red lace shamelessly poking out from between the folds of gray fabric. Seiji made a sound a little too close to a yelp and dropped the entire bundle to the floor in alarm. Nicholas burst out laughing—huge, snorting bouts of delight—as he watched Seiji’s cheeks flame.

Seiji stooped to retrieve his clothes and efficiently stuffed the lingerie back into his pajama drawer.

“You’re hilarious,” Nicholas choked. His face was red too, but from lack of oxygen, not lack of dignity. “Don’t call me panties! That’s a great line—oh, whoops! Shit.”

As Nicholas laughed, his water sloshed from his glass. He quickly put the cup down and snatched up the pillow it had drenched. The body pillow with the ducks.

Seiji pinched the bridge of his nose.

“First you get crumbs in my bed—,”

_“Our_ bed.”

“And now you spill water in it. You’re lucky it didn’t get on the mattress. Go put that somewhere to dry.”

Nicholas guiltily slunk off with the long pillow under an arm. When he got back, Seiji was climbing into bed. Nicholas looked him over with a smirk and, even though Seiji was now in slovenly pajamas as far from alluring as it was possible to get, that smirk made him feel like Nicholas was seeing him in something else entirely.

“Lights out?” he asked, hovering by the door until Seiji was under the covers.

“Yes.”

Nicholas turned out the lights and navigated to the bed, diving in.

“Goodnight, Seiji,” Nicholas said. And it still gave him a thrill to hear that—to hear _his_ name on Nicholas’s lips. It had been just over a month since Nicholas had started using Seiji’s first name; he should have been used to it by now. But sometimes it caught him off guard and sent an awful thrill through him.

“Goodnight, Nicholas,” Seiji returned evenly. Then he turned away from his husband, the absence of that ridiculous duck pillow making him feel far too close.

Seiji was exhausted and sleep started tugging at him at once. It wasn’t the only thing. Seiji, half-asleep and only vaguely aware, felt an arm loop around him and tug him close. Seiji wasn’t aware of much but he _was_ aware of the warmth and the press of Nicholas’s chest against his back, of the fact that his shirt had ridden up ever so slightly in the back and that, against that sliver of skin, he could feel the direct warmth of Nicholas’s bare stomach.

Seiji fell asleep.

* * *

It was late afternoon when Seiji woke up again, still pressed up snuggly against his husband. For a moment, when his eyes first fell on the clock on his nightstand, Seiji felt a surge of panic. It was late, they’d already missed Christmas morning with Robert—

But Seiji wouldn’t have gone anyway, he realized. He let himself relax back into bed. Back into—

Nicholas.

Seiji propelled out of bed properly this time. Nicholas grumbled and his arms snatched at air, eventually finding Seiji’s pillow and pulling it to him in Seiji’s place. He really was incorrigible with that hugging habit of his.

Seiji muggily recalled how Nicholas had accidentally grabbed him last night and mentally scolded himself for not pulling away or shoving Nicholas off him. He’d hardly been aware of anything, but he should have known enough not to allow Nicholas’s heat to envelop him. It was dishonest of him.

“Morning,” Nicholas said, voice deep and gravelly with the hangings of sleep as he wandered into the kitchen only minutes behind Seiji. He rubbed at an eye and yawned, stretching in an obscene way, stomach contorting and chest expanding and muscles rearranging under exposed skin. Seiji looked away.

“It’s afternoon. And put on a shirt.”

“It’s basically morning. And no. The point of staying in and having a cozy Christmas is wearing pajamas all day.”

“You’re not in pajamas, you’re only in the pants and that doesn’t count.”

Nicholas was ignoring him, crouching like a child under the tree he’d put up by the piano weeks ago. Seiji finished making his tea before joining Nicholas, standing over him as he picked out two gifts wrapped in matching paper, one addressed to each of them.

“From Eugene,” Nick said giddily. But when he looked up to hand Seiji the one for him, he squinted. “Come pull up a bit of floor.”

“I’m not sitting on the floor.”

“It’s not practical to move all the presents to the living room,” Nicholas argued, looking proud of the point he’d just made. Seiji wasn’t persuaded. “Fine,” Nicholas rolled his eyes dramatically and leaned to hook a hand under the piano bench, pulling it out and patting the seat. “Sit down here then.”

Seiji regarded the bench. It would put him above Nicholas if he sat there. Months ago, he’d have been glad for the extra bit of removal from his husband the seating arrangement would offer.

Seiji sighed, skirting around Nicholas and gingerly lowering himself to the floor. Nicholas’s smile was wide as he offered the present to Seiji again. Putting his tea to the side, Seiji took it. He slid his fingers underneath a fold of paper and eased the tape away from its hold carefully. He’d only started to pull the flattish white box out of the tunnel of paper when Nicholas started laughing. Seiji looked over and saw Nicholas holding up a bright red long-sleeved shirt with a candy cane on the front up to his chest, a pair of candy cane striped pants spilling out of his own box.

“Bet you he got you a matching set. Open it!”

Seiji opened his box. Nicholas was right. Eugene had gotten Seiji a pair of pajamas. Blue, with a flurry of snowflakes patterning the pants and a single one emblazoned on the shirt. Seiji got the joke. He tried not to let himself dwell on how much of the joke Eugene understood. But he wouldn’t put it past Nicholas to have shared the pajama bargain with Eugene.

“You should put on the shirt,” Seiji suggested. “I’ll take a picture for Eugene.”

“You know the rules.”

“And so, apparently, does Eugene.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I think he’s on your side.”

“My side?”

“He thinks I should get over your pajamas. But has he ever married someone who wears socks to bed? No, he hasn’t. And I like to think he’d understand why it’s so hard to _get over_ making fun of that if he had.”

Nicholas continued to grin as he pulled the shirt over his head, hair flopping out of the neck hole in an explosion, full of static.

“It fits!” Nicholas declared, shoving his arms into place and pulling the shirt down to show off the candy cane front before letting it settle into place.

Hesitating slightly, Seiji set his new pajamas on his lap, hands closing around the hem of his current shirt and lifting it for removal.

“Oh,” Nicholas said, fitting a lot of surprise into the single syllable. Seiji refused to look at him. “You don’t actually have to…”

But Seiji did. He pulled the shirt off and forced himself to move calmly as he picked the new one up. It wouldn’t do to rush and show his embarrassment. Nicholas had no shame in these things, why should Seiji?

But they both knew Seiji wasn’t the type to walk about the house without a shirt on. In fact, Seiji had taken care to avoid being in any state of undress around his husband. The notable exception, of course, being his birthday.

“Happy?” Seiji asked when he’d tugged the snowflake pajama top into place, looking over to Nicholas. It took a moment for Nicholas’s eyes to travel up his body and back to his face. Seiji fought off a flush at the attention.

Seiji had noticed before that Nicholas wasn’t uninterested in what he saw. Seiji had seen that interest on their honeymoon, perhaps a handful of other times too, like when Nicholas had looked over Seiji’s sultry vampire costume—which Nicholas had forced Seiji into himself. But interest of this variety wasn’t really what interested Seiji. Nicholas might look at his body, his face, his appearance and see something favorable there. But Seiji could remember the look on Nicholas’s face as he’d pulled out of Seiji’s clumsy grasp.

_I can’t._

He’d looked pained. Seiji had never seen the expression on Nicholas outside of that moment. It was a deeply complicated and unhappy thing that didn’t fit Nicholas’s kind eyes and loose smiles.

There was a difference between enjoying a view and betraying feelings to indulge in it. And Nicholas wasn’t a cheater.

“Eugene will love this,” Nicholas said, falling into place next to Seiji again. When had he gotten up? And why? But the answer to his second question, at least, was quickly answered.

Nicholas slung an arm around Seiji’s shoulders and held his newly-retrieved phone out in front of them, snapping a photo before Seiji could adjust his expression or tidy his hair. He looked horrid, messy and surprised and childish in his new Christmas pajamas. But Nicholas was already sending it off to Eugene so there was no use in fighting now.

They remained by the tree as they made their way through the stack of gifts under it. Couples’ cooking classes and glassware from Seiji’s parents and a new couch for the game room from Robert, the card explaining that movers would be in next week to put it in place. Impersonal but high-end chocolates from Jesse. Clothes from Bobby—he really was a talented designer. Seiji would need to talk to him, see if he wanted some of Seiji’s contacts in the fashion industry. Champagne labeled _the good cold_ from Jeffers, a man from Nicholas’s work. Various other odds and ends from contacts and acquaintances, but none of any particular note.

“Just two left,” Nicholas said, pulling the remaining gifts from under the tree, one huge and one tiny. “Think they’re from Santa?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Here, open mine first.” Nicholas pushed the huge box to Seiji. It was heavy. Seiji glanced up at Nicholas before carefully finding a seam in the wrapping. “Can’t you go any faster?”

“Can’t you talk any less?”

“Good one.”

“Not really.”

Seiji got the wrapping paper off and unfolded the flaps of the large cardboard box, peering inside it. Books. A hefty collection of them, all bound in leather.

“Ah,” Seiji couldn’t help the small sound of surprise—perhaps even of excitement—as he reached in and drew a book out, flipping through its gilded pages, fingers tracing over colored ink and gorgeous illustrations. “Is this…?”

“That’s all of them,” Nicholas confirmed. “Took some persuasion to get those all in time,” he continued proudly, chest puffed out. “I know you’ve already got all the books but I figured you wouldn’t mind owning the leather-bound editions of your favorite series.”

“I wouldn’t. I don’t. Thank you.”

“Yeah, for sure. And I’m going to build you a shelf to put them on. I was thinking we could do this wall, right next to your piano.”

“Build me…?” Seiji asked in alarm, looking to the blank wall Nicholas was gesturing to, casually declaring he’d cover it in shelves. “Is there anything you _can’t_ do?”

Nicholas tossed his head back in a delighted laugh. It might have been the reflection off his bright shirt, but he looked a little rosy. He looked happy.

“It’s not so hard. I’ll show you what I want to do before I start making holes in the wall, don’t worry.”

“I wasn’t worrying.”

“Good.”

The way Nicholas was smiling at him made Seiji’s stomach flip. It made him restless and sure that if Nicholas watched him any longer, Seiji was bound to do something stupid and make a fool of himself. He snatched the small box from the wreckage of wrapping paper, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand, and pressed it into Nicholas’s.

“That’s from me,” he said, already making good on his premonition of foolishness with the obvious statement. “Merry Christmas.”

Nicholas tore open the gift in two seconds flat.

“Keys?” he asked, looking up from the key and fob dangling off a finger.

“I know you could have gotten your own car,” Seiji started to explain to Nicholas’s blank expression, “but seeing as you’ve been driving the lender from Robert for eight months, I assumed you wouldn’t get one yourself.”

“A car? You got me a—?”

“In the garage,” Seiji said, not even finishing before Nicholas was scrambling to his feet and down the stairs. Seiji got up too and followed Nicholas down, stepping into the lit garage to stand next to Nicholas as he stared at the bright red car parked there.

“I asked Joe what your dream car was, I thought if anyone would know what you like in a car, it would be him.”

“A nineteen-fifty-seven Coste Blade,” Nicholas said wonderingly, placing a hand on the hood like he couldn’t believe he was allowed to touch it. “Seiji, I love it.”

Seiji exhaled a breath of relief, then nodded smartly.

“Do you want to take her for a ride?”


	43. Chapter 43

“Nicholas, hurry up,” Seiji called. “We’re going to be late.”

“Coming!”

Nicholas slid into the living room in such a literal way that Seiji rather expected him to crash into something. Catching scent of Seiji’s thought, Nicholas offered him a lopsided grin as he hurdled around Seiji and into the mudroom.

“For how often you make me late to things,” Seiji said as he watched Nicholas hop into shoes, “I ought to sue you.”

“What if I asked you very nicely not to?”

“Is that the best deal you have to offer?”

Nicholas thought about it, then lifted a set of keys off their hook.

“Here’s my deal, take it or leave it. You don’t call the lawyers on me and I’ll let you drive.” Nicholas jingled Seiji’s keys for emphasis.

Seiji considered.

“I accept.”

Nicholas tossed him his keys and bound out the door and down the steps to their driveway. Seiji followed after, locking the house behind him. He was glad to climb into his car and start the engine. For the past two weeks, Nicholas had taken every opportunity to drive—on both occasions they’d gone out for food, and on the day Nicholas had spent shadowing Seiji at the office, they’d taken his new vintage cherry red car. Seiji was pleased that Nicholas liked his gift so much, but he was pleased with this shift back to normalcy too. He liked to drive.

“I’m so going to beat you,” Nicholas taunted, bursting from the car when they’d parked.

“It’s a cooking class. A _couples’_ cooking class. In what universe do you think there’s a competition to be had here?”

“You’re right, it is a couples’ thing, isn’t it? We’ll just have to beat all the other couples, then.”

“Nicholas, this isn’t one of your cooking competition television shows. I expect you to behave.”

“We’re still going to win it, whatever it is. Come on, let’s get in there and kick some ass!”

Seiji dismissed Nicholas with a shake of his head but as they started prepping their station and collecting their ingredients as per the demonstration, Seiji found himself doing a sweep of the other stations. He stopped when he noticed Nicholas grinning at him in a meaningful way.

“We’re already ahead because I knew what _mise en place_ was,” Nicholas whispered in Seiji’s ear. Seiji batted him away, pulling out a cutting board.

Today was a basic introduction to cooking, focusing on setting up— _mise en place_ —and knife skills. Seiji glanced at the notes he’d taken during the demonstration, then selected the carrot, which his notes indicated he was meant to ‘julienne.’ Apparently, there were different ways to cut up vegetables and _chopping_ was not an umbrella term, they all had specific names.

“You’re being so slow,” Nicholas complained. “The Hameeds have already cut up nearly all their veggies.”

“Shush, I’m focusing.”

Nicholas’s snort was not appreciated.

“Let me do the next one,” Nicholas said, already trying to take the knife from Seiji, which Seiji doubted counted as ‘safe handling.’ “We’ll be here all night if I leave it to you.”

“Fine,” Seiji said tersely, relinquishing the knife and watching as Nicholas gracelessly butchered the cucumber. “Those were meant to be julienne cuts,” he said when Nicholas was finished, unimpressed.

“They _are_ julienne,” Nicholas said, reaching for the pepper next.

“Mine look better,” Seiji observed. “Does that mean I’m winning?”

“No, I cut mine in, like, ten seconds. That makes me the winner. And anyway, we’re teaming up against the Hameeds now.”

“Do they know?” Seiji asked, looking over to the handsome couple about their age in the kitchen station directly across from their own. “They look to be too busy competing against each other to worry about us.”

“Doesn’t matter if they know we’re battling, we’re beating them either way.”

“Then give me the knife and let me finish cutting, you’ve made a tragedy of our cucumber already. Go put on the noodles or start on the sauce.”

“Whatever you say, chef,” Nicholas agreed after thinking it over. “But if you’re not done cutting by the time I’m done with that, I _am_ taking back that knife.”

Seiji finished his task well before Nicholas was done with his, and used his vegetables—and the mutilated cucumber too—in order to construct the filling for their Vietnamese spring rolls.

“Looking good,” Nicholas said approvingly, coming over to check in on Seiji’s progress.

“Don’t sound so patronizing.”

“Bet you never thought you’d be here.”

“In cooking classes?”

“Yeah.”

“I can’t say that I ever did.” He paused. “But it’s a useful skill to have, I suppose.”

Nicholas beamed again. He was exceptionally cheerful tonight. As much as he complained about his business classes, Nicholas was built to learn. Seiji knew he liked being able to do things himself and trusted things best when he’d done them with his own two hands. Like the shelves he’d stolen one of Seiji’s afternoons to plan out and was in the process of building. Nicholas _could_ have bought a shelf instead. But he was just like that—like this. Eager to put in the work and make a tangible difference. Seiji wouldn’t admit it, especially over something as small as being excited for cooking classes, but he admired that in his husband.

As Seiji watched Nicholas wrap their first roll, that admiration fled fast.

“Can’t you try to do it properly?” Seiji asked, exasperated.

“It’ll taste good and that’s what matters.”

“It will fall apart on the way to your mouth, which makes its taste irrelevant.”

“You try, then,” Nicholas said.

Seiji spread softened rice paper on the clean cutting board and assembled the vegetables and noodles in its center. He rolled it tightly and the carrots speared through the rapper. On his second attempt, he rolled too loosely. Nicholas pushed him out of the way to try again, wrapping the contents sloppily but securely enough. Seiji frowned at their amassed pile of rolls, then back to their ingredients.

“We’ve only got two wrappers left,” he observed.

“One for each of us.” Nicholas waved a hand at the cutting board. “After you.”

Seiji laid the fillings out neatly and folded over the rice paper precisely, but hesitated before attempting to roll it.

“Show me how you do it,” Seiji requested of Nicholas.

“Me?”

“No, Zayn. Yes, _you_. Who else would I be asking?”

“No need to get sassy with me, sheesh, I’m happy to help,” Nicholas said with a wink. Seiji suspected he knew that Seiji didn’t enjoy asking for help. Carefully, he stepped up next to Seiji and reached for the roll. Seiji withdrew his hands. “Like this,” Nicholas said, demonstrating.

It was the best looking spring roll yet.

When Nicholas spread his last rice wrapper out, Seiji was surprised to see him take a little more care with the last of their filling, placing it more intentionally than he had before. More like Seiji had.

“You try,” Nicholas offered after folding down the wrapper.

Seiji hesitated only a moment before reaching for the wrapper and mimicking Nicholas.

“Not half bad,” Seiji admitted of their final creation.

“I think we’re better in the kitchen together,” Nicholas laughed.

“We make a good team,” Seiji agreed, then glanced to Nathan and Zayn Hameed in the neighboring station, who’d resorted to a miniature food fight. “And I think we won.”


	44. Chapter 44

Nick had very little to complain about lately. Work was going well and he’d gotten the hang of balancing it with his personal life, the press hadn’t torn him apart over anything, his devil husband wasn’t actually the devil, and he hadn’t had the gnawing anxiety about wasting money every time he made a purchase in months. But he still had one pretty major complaint.

“We’re not going to Jesse’s birthday bash,” Nick said, staring Seiji down over the counter, hand overlapping Seiji’s on the letter he’d just unearthed from the stack of mail. “No way.”

“Of course we are,” Seiji said, jerking the letter and his hand away from Nick’s. “How would it look if you didn’t go to your own brother’s birthday?”

“He stormed out of mine.”

“But that wasn’t a publicized event.”

“I’m not going.”

“I can’t make you,” Seiji said, though Nick was pretty sure he _could._ There was something in the contract about attending functions in their best interest that Seiji could apply to this situation if he wanted. “But I’m going.”

“Seiji,” Nick pleaded.

“With or without you.”

“Like hell you’re going into enemy territory without me.”

“Then I’ll RSVP for two.”

Nick glared at Seiji and his minuscule but insufferably smug smile.

_“Can’t make you_ my ass.”

* * *

Nick seethed the entire drive to the hotel Jesse was hosting his twenty-first at.

“Don’t pout,” Seiji scolded after handing his keys off to the valet. Nick thought he had good reason to pout, reasons which were only justified further when they made their way into the event.

“There’s a champagne fountain, Seiji,” Nick groused. “Have you ever seen something so gaudy your entire life?”

“I’ve been to plenty of parties thrown by all sorts of people, remember? That fountain is close to tasteful in the grand scheme of things, believe it or not.”

“Do you think he’ll ride in on an elephant?”

“Try to behave. We only have to stay for a few hours, show our faces, wish Jesse a happy birthday—,”

“Do we have to?”

“Yes, Nicholas, it’s polite.”

“He doesn’t deserve it.”

“What is your problem with him?” Seiji asked, bringing Nick up short.

“What do you mean?”

“You dislike him a lot, considering you’ve had a total of three conversations with him. And I’d swear you get more hostile about him each time he comes up.”

“Don’t you hate him? After the way he treated you, how can you not be hostile about him?”

“Jesse is far from my favorite person, but I don’t see the point in making life more difficult by…” Seiji trailed off, looking at Nick curiously. “Is that why you take such issue with him? Because of—me?”

Nick tried to shrug off Seiji’s intense study of him, but he felt a little hot under the collar.

“I just think he’s a major asshole and a fuckup.”

“A fuckup? _Jesse?_ I don’t think I’ve ever heard that opinion of him before.”

Nick was about to defend his opinion by asking what else you’d call someone who counted contracts as consent and turned life into a series of bargains, but the words died on his tongue when he realized that Seiji’s considering expression had been replaced by blatant amusement. Nick held his breath, sure Seiji would laugh. He didn’t, but he exhaled a little loudly, shaking his head at Nick with the laugh held in his eyes and on his lips.

“Let’s get this over with,” Nick told Seiji, “and then get the fuck out of here.”

They found a table to stack their gift on—the table was overflowing with tribute to Jesse already. This party was massive. How many people did Jesse know? Nick scanned the ones he could see in the ballroom.

A hand grabbed Nick’s out of nowhere and he jumped, whipping his head around to the source of the spook.

_“He’s_ here,” Seiji said with a sneer, nodding his head subtly to the middle of the ballroom. Nick hadn’t looked there yet, but it wasn’t hard to tell who _he_ was.

“Does Jesse know Aiden?”

“Apparently.”

“There must be a Facebook group for rich, slimy bastards.”

As if hearing his title, Aiden looked over his shoulder and caught them staring. Smiling sweetly, he gave them a little wave before turning back to the group of admirers he’d collected. He didn’t come over, but Seiji didn’t let go of Nick’s hand.

“He’s up to something,” Nick said.

“Most definitely.”

“It’s almost more worrying that he’s stopped going after me than if he’d stuck with it.” Seiji raised an eyebrow at Nick’s words, causing Nick to laugh, “I’m just saying that now we have no idea what they’re up to. They’ve changed tactics.”

Before Seiji could offer any thoughts on the subject, they were apprehended by someone Seiji knew from work and pulled into a lengthy conversation that consisted of something of an interview. Or an interrogation. It reminded Nick of the meeting with Charles. Anyone over the age of fifty seemed unwilling to believe that anyone under the age of thirty knew how to tie their shoes.

“That was rude,” Nick muttered when the conversation ended with the man going off to find a drink.

“That was Evan.”

Nick snorted but even as he tried to pull Seiji to go find someone actually pleasant to talk to, a new group swallowed them up. This time, conversation was on internal politics in some firm or another. Seiji and Nick listened politely and issued assurances about rumors cropping up there that Katayama Energy and Coste Motor were on rocky grounds. A lot of people benefited from their partnership and disrupting it would do harm to a lot of smaller businesses and partners both businesses had, as Seiji explained to Nick after they escaped the circle.

Nick managed to get them into a conversation with Jeffers and some of the other guys he knew in passing from the office. But even though Jeffers was a laugh and Marcel and Thomas were nice, Nick could see Seiji starting to lose energy. It was in the tightening skin around his eyes, like it was starting to be a lot of effort to keep up a pleasant expression. It was in the straightening of his posture, like he was reverting back to a practiced way of being instead of just _being._

“We’re going to go find something to drink,” Nick said to signal his and Seiji’s departure to the others.

“Keep an eye on your husband!” Jeffers hooted as they left.

“You don’t drink,” Seiji said. “And I’m certainly not interested in losing my mind again.”

“Soda, Seiji,” Nick said. “Or water. There are tons of drinks. Anyway, that’s not why we left.”

“It’s not?”

“Nope. It was all part of a clever escape. Go take a breather.”

“What?”

“I’ll cover for you,” Nick told him. “Come find me when you’re ready.”

Seiji didn’t often appear uncertain, but he did now, eyes flitting to a likely hidey-hole and then back to Nick.

“I’m the one who insisted we come to this party.”

“But people don’t drain me the way they do you. You’ve got a partner in crime now, take advantage of it. Go get away from the noise and the crowds and come find me when you’re ready for it all again.”

“Why not come with me? If you’re so intent on me going.”

“People would notice if we both disappeared,” Nick said, unable to help the suggestion in his voice.

“Oh,” Seiji said faintly. “Of course, they’d assume…”

“I’ll buy you time.”

Finally, Seiji nodded, hand slipping out of Nick’s for the first time all evening.

“Thank you.”

Nick nodded back, watching Seiji move through the crowd like a ghost and disappear.

He took to the floor himself, meandering through the dancing and the shouted conversations and loud music and entertainment scattered around the place. He did eventually find his way to a table laden with drinks and scooped a soda up, sipping at it idly as he tuned out and let his eyes and ears wander. Familiar voices behind him caught his attention and encouraged him to stay still, stay quiet.

“You can’t put me on Nick’s project,” Jesse hissed furiously. “Do you know how much he hates me?”

“I think it will be good for you,” Robert replied back steadily.

“He’ll veto it. You might be able to force me into it but it’s his company, his project.”

“You’d be an asset to his team, I’ll ask him if he’d be willing to work with you. I think he’ll agree to try.”

“Why? Why do you even want me working on Nick’s great _car of the people?”_ Jesse asked with a sarcastic emphasis on the final phrase.

“I think he’ll be a good influence on you.”

“A good influence? How so? What has _Nick_ done that I haven’t proven capable of? What has he done in the last year that I haven’t done in the last twenty?”

“He’s risen to the occasion spectacularly and faced his responsibilities admirably.”

“As if that’s not how I spent my _entire life,”_ Jesse spat. “Taking on my responsibilities and doing my duty perfectly is how I’ve lived my whole life.”

“But you don’t live like that anymore.”

“Because it’s not my life anymore! Let Nick be responsible, but his admirable devotion to Seiji isn’t going to rub off on me.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Robert said, quiet in the face of Jesse’s rising anger. Nick was surprised no one else had noticed their spat yet. “I worry about you, Jesse.”

“Don’t.”

Nick heard Jesse’s brisk exit and Robert’s sigh. Quietly, he slunk away before Robert had a chance to spot him. But Nick spotted Jesse not long after. He was escaping out into the courtyard, where the party raged on, despite the chill and the light dusting of snow. Jesse shrugged into a light jacket, a blur of pink falling from the pocket. Jesse didn’t seem to notice.

Nick should have left it there to get trampled where Jesse had dropped it just outside the door. But even if Jesse had a thousand hats to replace the one on the ground, Nick didn’t like to see things go to waste. So he walked to the door and knelt to retrieve the silly hat. It had a pompom on top and Nick couldn’t imagine Jesse actually wearing the thing. Maybe he’d stolen someone else’s coat. Probably, anyone he asked would gladly hand theirs over.

“That’s mine.”

Nick looked up. Apparently, this _was_ Jesse’s hat. And he’d actually come back for it.

“Oh, you,” Jesse said, registering Nick a moment before he stood. But his interest was too focused to care much about Nick. He held out his hand, eyes fixed on the hat in Nick’s. “Can I have that back?”

“I wasn’t trying to steal it,” Nick said when Jesse snatched it from Nick’s offered hand. “I just noticed you dropped it and thought I’d return it.”

“Oh,” Jesse said again. “Thanks.”

“Sure.” There was an awkward pause, neither of them sure how to proceed in the interaction. “Uh. Happy birthday, by the way.”

“Thank you.”

“Well, try not to go too overboard with the drinking,” Nick offered, even more awkwardly, before trying to escape.

“I don’t really drink,” Jesse said, by habit, it seemed. He looked like he regretted speaking when it resulted in Nick pausing in his clear intention to turn and leave.

“Yeah, me either.”

“Everyone says it’s an acquired taste but I don’t see the point in acquiring it. I’ll take my indulgences in sweeter forms.”

“There’s plenty of sweet drinks. Or so I’ve been told.”

“Funny, I’ve been told the same thing. Several times just within the last two hours, actually.” It might have sounded boastful, the clear allusion to people offering him drinks, but Jesse said it with a wrinkled nose.

“Don’t let them convince you into trying anything you don’t want to.”

Jesse cocked his head at Nick, likely detecting the hard edge in his words.

“It’s too bad I haven’t got a strong big brother to threaten them with.”

Nick snorted. “Good thing you’ve got security to threaten them with instead.”

“I might do just that,” Jesse agreed. Conversation seemed at its end, but Jesse surprised Nick again. “And consider your birthday obligations to me satisfied. Go collect your husband and get out of here.”

“Cool, I will,” Nick said, “Thanks.”

Jesse gave a small nod, turning to blend into the crowd of people out here. Nick went back inside, intending to find Seiji. Seiji found him first, cutting across the floor and right to him as soon as Nick was inside.

“Welcome back,” Nick said as Seiji’s hand slid back into his.

“Where were you?”

“Outside. Didn’t mean to abandon you alone in here, sorry.”

“I’m an adult, Nicholas, I was fine.”

Nick was tempted to hold their hands up between him as proof to the contrary. Seiji’s grip was a vice, as if he didn’t trust Nick not to run off without him. But he knew drawing attention to it would only succeed in making Seiji withdraw.

“I think you’ll be happy to know that I fulfilled our duties here tonight already. I ran into Jesse outside, said happy birthday. He said we could leave.”

“I should really—,”

“Seiji, come _on,”_ Nick groaned. “Just take the out. Let’s go home.”

Seiji hesitated but relented and finally allowed them to leave.

* * *

Nick wasn’t surprised to look up at the knock on his open office door to find Robert standing there.

“Do you have a moment?” he asked.

“Come on in,” Nick replied. Robert closed the door behind himself as he did, then took a seat at Nick’s desk.

“I wanted to talk to you about putting a marketing expert on your project.”

“Jesse?” Nick asked bluntly. Robert didn’t look surprised that Nick had caught on.

“I know you two don’t see eye to eye, but if you give it a chance, I think you could achieve a lot together. He’s got a lot of experience in the company and launched his first campaign when he was—,”

“I don’t need Jesse’s resumé,” Nick said, realizing a moment too late that he’d been rude in interrupting.

“Then what do you need?” Robert wondered. “I’d like for you to give this a try. I won’t force your hand, but tell me what you’d need to make this work.”

_I need Jesse Coste as far away from me as possible,_ Nick almost said. But even as the words floated to the forefront of his mind, others came up to block them. _Do you know how much he hates me?_

Jesse was a dick. Nick was right to dislike him. But a creeping guilt at Jesse’s surety in Nick’s dislike for him suddenly wouldn’t leave him alone. Nick didn’t really like hurting people. He wasn’t sure if he was capable of hurting someone like Jesse, but the thought bothered him anyway. Schoolyard brawls over insults and slights were one thing, but this was different. _It’s more justified,_ he told himself. Jesse hadn’t been anything but awful to Seiji their whole relationship. Just because he’d managed to hold one vitriol-free conversation with his little brother yesterday didn’t mean Jesse wasn’t still an asshole. It didn’t mean Nick was wrong about him. It didn’t mean Jesse wasn’t right about Nick hating him.

“We’ll take him on as a consultant,” Nick sighed. “But I get to kick him off any time I want.”

“That sounds like a fair agreement,” Robert smiled, offering a hand. “I’ll tell Jesse. He can sit in on our meeting next week.”

“Sure,” Nick agreed, taking the handshake.

“Thank you, Nicholas,” Robert said, pausing after he stood. “I think you’re doing good things here. And I really believe that Jesse can help.”

Nick shrugged. Who knew, maybe he actually could. Jesse _was_ supposed to be a genius with marketing, everyone said so.

_The car of the people._ It wasn’t a terrible tagline.


	45. Chapter 45

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to make a 'see you next year' joke last chapter but I hope you all had a happy new year! <3

Nick kind of missed the duck pillow sometimes. He liked having something to hold at night. But he never mentioned it or its mysterious disappearance after the water incident on Christmas. Even though he kind of missed it, he didn’t want Seiji to bring it back. Because sometimes he was allowed to hold something else at night.

Nick never purposefully snuggled up to Seiji. He knew better than that. But sometimes, he reached for something when he was asleep or too close to asleep to have any sense, and he’d find Seiji there. Rigid but still warm. On those mornings—the mornings they woke up almost tangled together, Seiji would pick his arm off him with a long-suffering sigh and climb out of bed with furrowed brows. But he never brought it up to scold Nick. So Nick didn’t ever really try to stop himself from reaching out.

This morning, Nick woke before Seiji. A rare affair indeed. Usually, Nick woke only briefly when Seiji’s early alarm went off, at the slight adjustment of the bed as he got out of it, and, on the days it was needed, at the way Seiji had to physically rearrange or disrupt Nick’s position to escape the bed. This morning, Nick’s body woke him naturally the way it used to on especially important days he knew he couldn’t miss at school or work.

Seiji was still sleeping, emitting gentle breaths that occasionally hitched in cute, sleepy sighs. Nick didn’t want to wake up completely. He didn’t want to wake Seiji up at all. So he stayed as he was, face pressed into Seiji’s back and arm tossed around his middle, holding him securely, the way he used to hug the duck pillow.

When the sun started peeking up and streaming through the window, Nick turned just enough to reach his phone and navigate to the alarm, silencing it before it could even go off. He intended to return his arm to the dip in Seiji’s side, but when he put down his phone and rolled back to Seiji, he found a void-black eye peering at him blearily over a shoulder.

“Did I wake you?” Nick asked. With the clumsiness only sleep could bring out in Seiji, he turned over to face Nick, stifling a yawn and curling a hand next to his jaw on the pillow.

“It was time to wake up anyway.”

“I guess. But I hate to wake you.”

“Why? I’m not half so irritable to rouse as you are.”

Nick laughed lightly and swept Seiji’s bedhead out of his face before he could think better of it. He brushed his thumb into the furrow of Seiji’s eyebrows now that he’d exposed it.

“No, you’re not a mean waker. But the moment you wake up, this happens.” Another tap at the furrow and then Nick let his hand fall away, arm falling loosely over Seiji’s side. He thought it might be allowed today and he was right. It was.

“I don’t follow.”

“That’s where you keep your frown when you’re awake,” Nick explained.

“As opposed to on my mouth, where most frowns are kept?” Seiji asked.

“Your mouth is always frowning, it can’t be trusted.”

“Is that so?” Seiji asked, cheek still smooshed against his pillow as he blinked lazily at Nick.

“It is,” Nick confirmed astutely. “But today it should be smiling.”

“And why is that?”

“Because it’s March fourth. Our very first anniversary.”

“Is that something to smile about?”

“I dunno. Isn’t it? We made it a year without killing each other.”

“Or causing any scandals,” Seiji added. Nick nodded.

“Exactly. Celebration is called for.”

“I’m inclined to agree. Tonight, though. We’ve still got work today.”

“Stupid leap year,” Nick complained as Seiji sat up, Nick’s arm falling off him. “It should have been a Sunday. We were robbed.”

* * *

Nick spent the day counting down the hours to get home. Robert noticed his keyed-up distractibility during their work—in a way, the work Nick did was still part of his education, but it was a 'learning on the job' approach now, as opposed to the more lecture-based setup they’d started with. He still had business classes three times a week and would until he got his degree, which, apparently, he’d been working on without realizing for almost a year now. Today, Nick was helping Robert and observing what his duties consisted of rather than sitting in class or working on his own project.

If Nick had been working on his car of the people, he might not have been so easily distracted today. Even working with Jesse on it this last month hadn’t been _too_ terrible. Jesse was no more thrilled about the arrangement than Nick was and, amazingly, stayed in his lane during all their meetings. He was determinedly professional, but his mouth _did_ tick amusingly whenever Nick used his tagline.

“Excited for tonight?” Robert asked Nick with a chuckle.

Nick looked up guiltily from checking his phone for the fifth time. He shrugged, abashed. Robert—and all Nick’s friends and acquaintances at the office—had already wished him a happy anniversary. No doubt, they all had assumptions about his apparent excitement for tonight.

“I think Seiji will like the gift I got him,” Nick admitted. “I want to see him open it. And I got it out of Mari that his favorite food is a triple fudge sundae. I hid all the stuff for them in the back of the freezer, but if he gets home first and notices anything out of place in there, he _will_ reorganize and ruin the surprise.”

“You two are really getting along, aren’t you?” Robert asked with a fond smile as he regarded Nick. “It makes me even more glad that we found you in time.”

Nick didn’t know what to say to that. To any of the implications held there. Even the base-most sentiment was hard to comprehend—that Nick being found ‘in time’ was preferable to Jesse living this life without anyone any the wiser to his legally illegitimate claim on it. Did Robert really believe that?

“Seiji’s not so bad,” Nick settled on saying. It was the safest thing he could come up with.

“He’s a good kid. A good man,” Robert corrected. “And lucky to have you by his side. I can finish things up here, why don’t you go home early and make sure Seiji doesn’t spoil his sundae surprise?”

Nick didn’t argue. But when he pulled into his driveway, Seiji’s yellow car was already there.

“You’re home early,” Nick announced loudly upon opening the door. He heard a clatter and a gasp from the kitchen that made him grin. Clearly, he’d startled his husband.

“Nicholas,” Seiji said when he sauntered into the house and tossed his bag and blazer onto the chair—the same chair he always tossed his shit on and got scolded for when Seiji spotted it. “Why are you back so early?”

“Robert released me from my duties because I wasn’t being any help. You?”

“I finished up early, that’s all.”

“Uh-huh,” Nick said dubiously, watching Seiji squirm behind the kitchen island, wearing a blue apron and pink ears. “What are you up to?”

“Dinner,” Seiji said simply. Nick checked the clock. It wasn’t even five yet. “I know it’s not technically my dinner night but I—,” Seiji gestured down at his array of ingredients.

“Are you making burgers?” Nick asked, coming closer for a better look. _“Real_ burgers?”

“We should just go out to dinner instead,” Seiji said hurriedly, hands scrabbling at the bow of his apron. “I don’t know what I was thinking—,”

“No—this is great! Burgers are my favorite.”

“I’m a terrible cook,” Seiji persisted.

“Then let me help.” Nick slid behind Seiji to get to the apron hook and pull his on. “We’re better in here together, remember? Plus, we did pretty alright on the mushroom monstrosities of yours and these are real burgers, so they’ll be even better.”

Seiji looked skittish but he stopped trying to remove his apron. What had his plan been? To make the burgers before Nick got home and pass them off as Chef Diane’s prep work? What was the point of actually making them instead of having their chef prep them if Seiji hadn’t meant for Nick to know?

Nick smiled down at the onion he was chopping. He had a pretty cute husband, in a weird, hidden sort of way.

Burgers were easy to churn out fast so they had an early dinner. Nick ate three burgers, all laden with extra pickles, which Seiji obviously disapproved of.

“Don’t turn on the dishwasher yet,” Nick warned Seiji as they cleaned up after dinner. “We haven’t had dessert yet.”

Seiji’s eyebrows pulled low. “I didn’t get dessert.”

“But I did.”

Nick pulled out his own array of ingredients from their various hiding places in the fridge, freezer, and cupboard. Then he pulled out two bowls and a big spoon for each. Proudly, he looked to Seiji and took in the surprised expression on his face as he realized what Nick was up to.

“Sundaes,” he said, close to reverently. Nick laughed and pulled open the ice cream tub.

“Triple fudge sundaes,” Nick corrected importantly.

Seiji stared at Nick a moment, lips slightly parted, as if to ask _why_ or _how._ But they didn’t. Instead, they pulled into a smile Nick could never have guessed a year ago that he’d be able to draw out today. It made a warmth like a fire light in his belly to know that he _could_ earn that small but soft smile from Seiji Katayama.

They made their sundaes and Nick put away the leftovers, surprised to find Seiji over on the couch when he was finished. Seiji disapproved of eating anywhere besides the kitchen, and ice cream was such an icky sticky mess, Nick wouldn’t have been surprised to be told to eat his over the sink. But his bowl was on the low coffee table next to Seiji’s.

“Do you want to put on a movie?” Nick asked, coming over to join Seiji on the couch.

“You can put one on,” Seiji told him, which meant yes.

They sat together and watched their movie and ate their ice cream and when they were done, Nick could have sworn Seiji was closer to him than he’d been ninety minutes before.

It was with regret that Nick stood, suspecting Seiji wouldn’t be so close by when he sat again. But their evening wasn’t over.

“Wait right there, I got you something.”

Seiji, of course, didn’t listen and didn’t wait right there.

“Oh!” he said, standing as well. “I need to get your gift too.”

They met back at the couch not even a full minute later. As Nick watched, Seiji leaned back against the couch and pulled his feet up on the cushion to tuck to one side. He looked practically as relaxed as he did when he slept, but then Seiji frowned at the bag Nick had produced his small rectangular parcel from. The bag was still on the chair, the one Seiji always told him was for sitting, not for storage. Rolling his eyes and making a show of it, Nick put away his things in their proper place.

“Now,” he said, retaking his seat and pushing his gift into Seiji’s hands. “This is for you.”

Seiji looked at the present, then at Nick, then again to the present. Carefully and with intentional precision, Seiji undid the wrapping and pulled out the journal within. He turned the small book over in his hands, taking in the leather cover, dyed the precise shade of blue Nick had noticed was his favorite. Just a touch brighter than a royal blue, but not quite sky blue. He’d had it custom made, and the prettily textured cream pages and perfectly imperfect coloring of the cover and leather strip to bind it closed all spoke to it being handcrafted, made to Nick’s specific request.

“Look inside,” Nick prompted. Seiji did. There, on the cover page, was a note written in the bright red Nick liked best.

“To my husband, who is unlike any other, happy first anniversary. Yours, N. Katayama,” Seiji read quietly, brushing fingers over the inscription and the little date tucked at the top corner after he’d read it. Then he gently closed it and, holding the journal to his chest, Seiji met Nick’s eyes. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Nick told him. “I noticed you’d just about finished your other one and thought…”

“I love it,” Seiji said, the words seeming to slip from his lips unbidden, as he turned from Nick quickly after admitting to it. In a rush, Seiji retrieved the gift bag at his feet and shoved it in Nick’s direction.

Taking it from him, Nick tore through the tissue paper and laughed in delight when he pulled out a pair of jeans he recognized. Black, covered in holes, and with a splotch of orange just above the left knee from a bleach stain years ago. They were one of his favorite pairs.

“Does this mean what I think it does?” Nick asked excitedly, looking to Seiji. He nodded.

“I’m officially returning your horrid pants to you. But I ask that you refrain from wearing them under circumstances in which they’d be inappropriate.”

“You’ve got a deal,” Nick agreed. “This is the best! You’re the best.”

He was still marveling at his jeans when Seiji stood and cleared their bowls. He’d missed his old jeans and couldn’t believe Seiji was giving them back. This was great—

Seiji’s body created a shadow over Nick a moment before he leaned down, pressing a kiss against Nick’s temple, a hand gently holding his face.

“Happy anniversary, Nicholas,” Seiji said. And, as he pulled away, all Nick wanted to do was pull him back.


	46. Chapter 46

The elevator announced its arrival at the top floor of Coste Headquarters, sliding open on a familiar hall. Seiji walked efficiently down it, toward his office, where notes on the marketing meeting he’d missed this morning would be waiting for him. An oddity in the scenery, however, caused Seiji to slow and stop before reaching his destination.

There was a man lingering outside of Nicholas’s door. It was closed, a rarity in itself that spoke of Nicholas’s need for focus. Seiji stepped up to the man, recognizing him even before looking into his face as the young lawyer that had joined the team dealing with Seiji and Nicholas’s marriage contract at Nicholas’s request last year. _I like him, he doesn’t treat me like I’m an imbecile_. Seiji had thought Nicholas deserved to be treated like an imbecile, but Robert had obliged him. The fact that this man was here now, hovering outside Nicholas’s office, suggested to Seiji that he had some business here tied to his work with their contract. So Seiji felt justified in clearing his throat.

“Harvard,” he said, drawing attention away from the door. “Is there something I can help you with?”

Harvard Lee was a kind man but he wasn’t one to be pushed around, and his confidence was usually clear in the cut of his shoulders and the unselfconscious smile he often wore. Today, that smile wasn’t there and his shoulders slumped. Today, he looked nervous. Twitchy.

“Ah, Seiji,” Harvard said with a nod of acknowledgment. “It’s just as well you’re here. I’ve got some…news I think might be relevant to you and your husband.”

Seiji’s heart stuttered. News? And a normally self-assured man acting shifty? Something wasn’t right. And Seiji wasn’t waiting to find out what. He nodded sharply, knocked on the door even more sharply, and pushed it open without waiting for Nicholas to invite him in.

“Seiji!” Nicholas said in surprise as he looked up from the papers littering his desk. The transformation of his face from deep-set concentration to ridiculously wide smile de-aged him incredibly from a man twice his age to the twenty-one-year-old he truly was. “What are you doing here?”

“Harvard says he has business with us.”

“I do,” Harvard confirmed, closing Nicholas’s door behind them.

“Oh, okay,” Nicholas said, eyes meeting Seiji’s in a question. Seiji shook his head slightly, conveying that he didn’t know what to make of this any more than Nicholas did. “Come and sit down, then,” he offered, gesturing at the two chairs across from him.

Harvard and Seiji took the seats.

“It might not be my place to say this,” Harvard started. Seiji couldn’t help but watch his husband instead of Harvard as he spoke, searching for some sign of guilt or recognition at Harvard’s ominous introduction. “But I found out about…uh, a plot, I suppose it could be called. Against you.”

“A plot?” Seiji asked, eyebrows shooting up. It wasn’t what he’d been expecting but he felt relief at the outside threat. If it wasn’t something Nicholas had done, it couldn’t be so bad.

“Yes, a plot. To try and break you up. Both maritally and in business.”

“Any chance a Kane is at the bottom of this plot?” Nicholas asked. Harvard looked momentarily surprised. Then he sighed and nodded dejectedly.

“It’s Aiden.” He said the name with a familiarity even Seiji could detect. He hadn’t been aware that the two knew each other. “He found out about the loophole in your marriage contract.”

_The loophole?_ Seiji thought but forced his face to betray no surprise.

“The loophole?” Nicholas asked aloud, surprise clear on his face. This reaction caused a furrow in Harvard’s brow.

“My apologies, perhaps _loophole_ isn’t the right term, it’s just what the team refers to it as. The condition, I mean, that if Nicholas denounced the Coste name, all inheritance and obligations would transfer back to Jesse Coste. And that would, of course, include the marriage contract.”

Seiji couldn’t think of what to say to that. It had never occurred to him that—

“I can do that?” Nicholas asked loudly, eyes wide. “Denounce the name and walk away from this all?”

Seiji didn’t flinch at the words. He only looked very carefully and deliberately down at his hands so as not to have to see Nicholas’s face. His reaction to this news.

“You weren’t aware?” Harvard asked, as surprised as anyone else in the room now.

“No,” Seiji said softly. “We were not.”

“It’s a nuanced thing, the intersection of Marjorie Coste’s will, the original proposal contract between your families, and your own marriage contract…but, technically, Marjorie’s wording about the firstborn grandchild of her bloodline can’t force Nicholas to accept the inheritance. If you decided to give it up, that’s within your legal rights. And, as a consequence, you’d be free of your marital obligations as well. But it’s all or nothing—you either inherit it all or denounce your right to all of it and pass it to your younger brother.”

“So, wait,” Nicholas said, “does that mean that if I denounced everything now, my marriage to Seiji would be—what? Obsolete? Void? Like, we’d be unmarried just like that?”

Seiji’s heart clenched at the question but he still didn’t react save for the hands folded in his lap tightening their hold on each other and carving little crescents into his skin.

“Not—no,” Harvard said, considering the question and how best to answer it. “Now that you’re married to him, that union takes precedence over Seiji’s obligation to marry the heir to Coste Motor. But it would free you of the legal obligation to remain married to him.”

“But we would, of course, get a divorce if such a thing came to pass,” Seiji said, looking up to meet his husband’s eyes at last with something like defiance. “My legal obligation to Jesse may not take precedence after you stepped down as inheritor to the Coste empire, but my moral obligation would still be to him. To the heir.”

Nicholas frowned and looked about to speak but Harvard cleared his throat.

“It would clear the path to divorce if that’s what you wanted. And that’s certainly what the Kanes want.”

“A broken marriage—even with a remarriage to Jesse—would weaken the validity of the bond between the Katayamas and the Costes,” Seiji nodded. “The public relations would be a disaster after such an affair.” Seiji regretted using that exact term just now.

“Precisely.”

“But I don’t understand,” Nicholas cut in. “Seiji won’t let Kane Industries become his family’s biggest business just because he sabotaged our relationship.”

“I believe it was Charles’s initial goal to cause dissent between you and your companies without the blame for it falling on him. But Aiden…he can take things to extremes. Watch bridges burn rather than see them lead places he doesn’t care to go. He was set on the task and I think he’s determined to see it through. But, even so, you weren’t supposed to know about his plan.”

“And what is his plan, exactly?” Seiji asked.

“I’m not entirely sure,” Harvard admitted. “But I know he got it out of one of my colleagues that there’s a way out of your contract. And I think…I think he has some idea about reasons you might want out of the contract, though I'm unclear about the details."

“Stop fucking looking at me like that!” Nicholas burst as Seiji’s gaze bore into him. “I’m not a cheater, how many times do I have to say? I thought we were over this. Jesus.”

Seiji was startled at Nicholas’s outburst and his fierce eyes. They made Seiji want to shrink in his high-backed chair—a feeling he had not experienced since he was very young.

“I didn’t…” he said, but faltered under the glare, unsure what to say to appease Nicholas. Because the truth wouldn’t cut it. A part of his mind had been slipping to Eugene Labao since he’d first seen Harvard nervously loitering at Nicholas’s office door.

“It doesn’t matter,” Harvard said, efficiently cutting through the awkward and hostile air. “I suspect Aiden will leak news of the loophole and any reasons he can think of that you might take it to stir up trouble, true or not. I wouldn’t be surprised if he claimed to know first hand that your marriage is an unhappy one, if you follow.”

Seiji did follow. He didn’t like where following got him. But there was another possibility that Seiji liked to consider even less. One that involved Aiden planning simply to tell Nicholas of the loophole and assuming the rest would be taken care of. Because, well, what if it was? Now that Nicholas knew he could be rid of Seiji, would he finish Aiden’s work for him?

“Thank you for telling us this, Harvard,” Nicholas said.

“Of course,” Harvard replied. “I’ll tell you if I hear anything more.”

“I appreciate that. And, actually, why don’t I get your card? In case we have questions.”

Harvard gave Nicholas his business card and took his leave. Nicholas very briefly rested his head in his hands, taking a deep, shaky breath. When he looked up again, his eyes were furious coals. Seiji expected him to rage about Seiji’s subtle accusations, but he didn’t say anything more to Seiji at all.

Nicholas shot out of his chair and stormed across the room. Without even meaning to, Seiji followed after him, keeping pace with him every step of the way to Robert Coste’s office. Nicholas didn’t so much as knock before bursting in. Seiji barely had time to close the great door behind them before Nicholas started shouting.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded.

Robert looked up at them, startled. Then he murmured an apologetic goodbye to whomever he had on the phone and hung up.

“Why didn’t I tell you what?” Robert asked.

“Don’t bullshit me. About the contract stuff—you never told me I had a choice about any of it.”

“Ah,” Robert said. “That. Why don’t you take a seat, it’s time we had a talk.”

“It’s past time,” Nicholas growled.

“I’ll see myself out,” Seiji decided, already turning to the door. A hand caught in the crook of his arm, freezing him.

“No,” Nicholas told him firmly. “Stay. This is your business too.”

Seiji felt trapped. He still wanted badly to flee but Robert inclined his head, indicating that he had no problem with Seiji sitting in. Seiji allowed Nicholas to pull him to Robert’s desk and, together, they sat down.

“The reason I didn’t tell you about the drastic option is because it was, in my opinion, _too_ drastic.”

“Who says you got to make that call?”

“Would the option have not felt like a request, Nicholas?” Robert countered. Nicholas paused. “If I had told you that you could sign over the company and your right to any and everything that comes with the Coste name, would it not have felt like I expected you to do so? How much easier would my life—would Jesse’s life, and Seiji’s—have been if you had? I could have offered you a choice but I knew that, no matter what I said or how I said it, you would see it as a false choice.”

“So you just decided all on your own that this life would be better for me? I was doing fine on my own, Robert. Just because my life didn’t meet your standards doesn’t mean it was inferior to this one.”

Robert shook his head slowly.

“I already took so much away from you, Nicholas, I wouldn’t do that again. I won’t abandon you again. And telling you about the other option would have done that for me, despite my intentions. Denouncing the Coste name and walking away from everything—there’s no room there for a relationship.”

Nicholas was quiet for a long time. Seiji watched the emotions war on his face and almost reached for his hand. Almost.

“In the end,” Nicholas said softly, “you chose business over me. And over Jesse. If you’d really only wanted a relationship, you’d have built one before dropping any of the contract stuff on my shoulders. Maybe it wouldn’t have sounded like a false choice if you’d done it right.”

Robert sat back as if slapped, his posture whipping from leaned across his desk to straight-backed against his chair. Seiji could feel the air sucked from the room. Nicholas didn’t understand about these things. He didn’t get it, for all that he was a part of it. Business through marriage had its own intricate procedures.

Nicholas looked briefly to Seiji, and Seiji saw the pity flit through Nicholas’s eyes, the way it so often did when they talked about those procedures. So Nicholas could see, then, that Seiji thought he asked too much of Robert. Nicholas gave a laugh with no humor and then stood to leave. Seiji wanted to stop him, felt that if Nicholas left now, he’d never come back. But he didn’t know how to reach out anymore.

“You’re right.”

The simple words stopped Nicholas from retreating. Slowly, he turned back.

“What?”

“You’re right,” Robert repeated, meeting Nicholas’s eyes evenly, unflinchingly. “I’ve always put business before family. I’ve started to wonder this past year if I’ve been wrong to do so.”

“You have been,” Nicholas said fiercely. “You all have been.”

“I think you must be right. My business is as prosperous as it’s ever been but my relationships with both my sons are in such shambles. I wonder if I might lose you both in every way that matters.”

Nicholas didn’t sit back down, but the air returned to the room.

“Were we still doing dinner on Sunday?” Nicholas asked.

Robert was in a rare state of disorientation and it took him a moment to catch up with Nicholas’s latest question.

“Yes,” he answered.

“Seiji and I will be there.”

Again, Nicholas turned his body to the door, but his eyes had slid to Seiji, waiting for him to follow. Seiji stood and side-stepped away from the desk to join his husband.

“Nicholas?” Robert said, making them pause in their exit. “I’m sorry.”

Nicholas nodded and continued to walk.

Seiji wasn’t always good at reading other people—it was his biggest failing as a businessman. But he was well acquainted with silent communication; he’d watched his parents’ ways for long enough to recognize when something deeper than what was being said aloud was being passed between people. And he thought that Nicholas and Robert weren’t likely to lose each other again. This conversation hadn’t fixed all that was wrong between them but it marked a desire to address and to fix all those wrongs.

“Are you alright?” Nicholas asked Seiji in the elevator down to the parking garage. Seiji couldn’t be sure what his expression must have fallen to for Nicholas to ask. He tried to straighten it out into something normal. But he wasn’t sure if he’d succeeded, so he ducked his head to the side, shadowing it from Nicholas’s view.

“Perfectly so,” Seiji replied. The doors dinged open. “But I’ve just remembered something I need to do back at the office. I won’t be joining you for dinner tonight.”

Seiji didn’t drive back to the office. He just drove. A pit had opened up in his stomach the moment he’d seen Harvard and it had only grown with Nicholas’s every word and reaction. Seiji hadn’t realized how miserable Nicholas was in this marriage to be so irate at the lost opportunity to get out of marrying him in the first place.

Even now, after a year of what Seiji had considered a relatively happy marriage, Nicholas disliked him so much. Seiji’s dislike had long since faded. But it seemed clear that Nicholas Cox would have rather denounced any and every name but his own, with all the riches and benefits of the attached life, to avoid being with Seiji.


	47. Chapter 47

Ever since learning about the loophole, something had changed.

Nick could guess why.

Seiji had come home late the night after their talk with Harvard and when he’d crawled into bed, Nick had noticed the way he clung to the very edge of the mattress, so close that Nick had worried he’d fall off. He’d made sure to stay to his own side of the bed that night.

It wasn’t until their meals fell out of sync and their house filled with silence between every moment that Nick realized just how far they’d come in the year and a month they’d been married. Now that Seiji had returned to his original quiet self, Nick missed the sound of his voice.

But he understood why Seiji seemed to be withdrawing more and more each day. The loophole…it changed things. They no longer _had_ to coexist. There was another option. And it was a lot to think about, a big decision. Soon, they’d have to discuss that big decision instead of only thinking about it simultaneously but alone. But not yet.

Not yet.

A week after this new development in Nick’s life—which he felt was already full of more _developments_ than one life was really meant to have—he woke up with his arms full of a by now familiar warmth. Nick yawned. It was Saturday morning, which meant he could sleep in. Seiji wouldn’t sleep in much longer, but he _did_ catch a little extra sleep on the weekends. Sometimes, he’d turn off his alarm and roll back to sleep with Nick until ten. Sure, Nick had only known him to do it twice in all their time together, but it _did_ happen. Nick doubted it would happen today. So he enjoyed the quiet, sleepy morning with Seiji while he had it.

Seiji really did look so unburdened in sleep. And last night he must have turned into Nick, their legs tangling together and Seiji’s head tucked up against his chest. One of his hands was lightly holding the black fabric of Nick’s sleep tank that he hated so much. _Cute,_ Nick thought sleepily. He wasn’t surprised by the thought. Not anymore—he’d had it before. But now wasn’t the time to be thinking it. Seiji might not be his husband to call cute for much longer.

Unwittingly, Nick held Seiji a little tighter. Too tight. Seiji woke up, blinking bleary eyes.

_Blink._

_Blink._

_Blink._

By the third blink, they were clear of sleep, eyebrows drawn low over them. Seiji sat up abruptly, shoving Nick off of him with more force than Nick had ever been dispatched with before.

“If you can’t keep to your side of the bed,” Seiji snapped, straightening the cuffs of his awful pajamas, “I’ll reinstate the duck pillow.”

“I’m—sorry?”

“See that it doesn’t happen again.”

Nick watched Seiji stiffly maneuver his way out of bed and wondered how much longer he could get away without talking about that important decision of theirs. He knew it would only be right to offer Seiji a choice…

Nick fled the house to avoid Seiji and his sour mood and all the things between them that needed to be sorted out. He went where he always went when his mind was muddled up like this.

“Nick, glad you could make it,” Eugene said, opening the front door moments after Nick had knocked on it.

“I’m the one that asked if I could come over. And that was only, like, twenty minutes ago,” Nick said, coming in.

“But you’ve got a standing invitation, you know that.” Eugene waved away his grumpiness and led him into the kitchen, where the rest of Eugene’s family was already sitting, chatting and serving up lunch. It was exactly what Nick needed.

Eugene’s little siblings, which had seemed so many and so little when he’d first met them, were all well on their way to growing up, but they still pulled out the same games and got on in the same easy, rowdy way they always had. And Nick, to his everlasting amazement, still fit into it, just like he had for years.

“I haven’t seen you in this much of a funk in a year,” Eugene said on his porch. The sun was creeping toward the horizon now and Nick would have to leave soon. It was his turn to make dinner. “Seiji troubles?”

“The usual,” Nick sighed. “Business _and_ marriage stuff. With Seiji, I can’t ever seem to get them to separate. He won’t let me.”

“Anything you can talk about? Or want to?”

“Nah. I don’t know. I just—don’t understand him. We were getting along fine and then _one_ thing changes and all of the sudden he can’t stand me. I told you about that body pillow, right?”

“Your ducky wife? Didn’t you say she got retired?”

“It did. But this morning, Seiji was talking about pulling it back out.”

“So…what changed?”

“Our options.”

“Options?”

“Yeah—listen, I shouldn’t talk about it right now because I don’t actually know what we’re going to do, but…I feel like every step forward we’ve taken has been a false one since we’re just right back to square one now.”

“You still call him Seiji,” Eugene mused.

But when Nick got home, he didn’t.

“Dinner in five,” Nick said, poking his head into Seiji’s home office. He was absorbed in his paperwork, reading glasses and scowl both securely in place. He didn’t even acknowledge Nick. “Katayama, dinner,” Nick tried again, less patiently.

Seiji looked up then, and the wounded expression that had replaced the scowl confused Nick. Until he realized he’d slipped. It was Eugene’s fault for putting the thought in his brain but, really, Seiji was acting a lot more like the man Nick had first known and first married than the friend he’d become these last months. And…and so the old name had come to Nick’s tongue when calling him. It was a sort of sick pleasure to realize the name upset Seiji, even if Nick wasn’t sure why it bothered him so much. If he was going to take them back to square one, Nick could go with him.

“Understood,” Seiji said, scowl back. “Let me finish up in here and I’ll be out shortly.”

Nick nodded and retreated, setting the table. Despite everything, Seiji still came out and they still ate this meal together, albeit in silence. Home-cooked dinners were just about the only time they ate together anymore.

“How is Eugene?” Seiji asked.

“Good. His car hasn’t fallen apart anymore since the last time I saw it.”

“Impressive.”

“Right?” The relapse into quiet was only more evident after the short stretch of pleasant conversation.

Seiji put down his bowl decisively, and the way he looked at Nick made it clear that they were doing this now.

“About the loophole,” Seiji said, “it’s your prerogative and right to do whatever you see fit. It’s your choice if you want to step down as heir and subsequently null our marriage so you can be with…”

“It’s my choice, but you want me to—wait, I’m sorry, are we back to this?” Nick was aware of his rising temper and voice, but he didn’t bother to smother either one. “How many times do I have to tell you that I’m not a cheater before you’ll _trust_ me?”

“I don’t believe you’ve been having an affair,” Seiji said calmly. Almost meekly, the way he said it down to his woven fingers. “But I believe there’s someone you might return to if you could.”

“Return to?” Nick was completely confused. Seiji gave nothing away, eyes fixed on his hands and lips an unreadable straight line.

It was Seiji’s shirt that pulled a memory loose. That blue button-down…Nick remembered a different day spent with Eugene and evening with Seiji when he’d worn that particular shirt—a shirt Nick knew hid a floral print under the cuffs that showed when he rolled the sleeves up, the way he had during a hot day under the sun in a scruffy yard. They’d gone to get ice cream after putting in some hours on Eugene’s warthog and Nick had thought Seiji looked pretty in it. Pretty and cold. Evening had driven Seiji’s sleeves down, but the thin fabric wasn’t made for chilly nights. Nick had lent him his jacket and Seiji had looked perfect in it. And then, hands clutching the jacket, he’d asked a peculiar question.

_What would you have done? If you’d had someone before you found out about…your obligation to me, what would you have done?_

Nick hadn’t really understood the question then and he didn’t really understand it now. Didn’t get why it was important. But he could connect the dots between that question and this assumption. How had he answered on that occasion? What had he said that had set Seiji on this belief?

“You asked me once what I would have done if I’d had somebody before you.” Nick stared hard at Seiji, willing him to look up. He did. “If I’d loved someone, I wouldn’t have married you. I would have denounced my right to the company and signed it over to Jesse. I would have disowned myself from Robert. I don’t do things by halves and I don’t leave behind people I care about. If I loved someone, Seiji, I would have done whatever it took to stay with them.”

“You didn’t know that was an option,” Seiji said after shaking his head at Nick, at his naivety.

“I’d have made it an option. I’d have asked Robert or the lawyers—I’d have demanded they tell me if there was a way out of marrying somebody I didn’t love, and if they’d told me there wasn’t one, I would have run away if that’s what it took. If the person I loved wanted to be with me too, I’d have stayed with them no matter what. That’s what I would have done.”

“Oh. I see…” Seiji said softly. He saw _something,_ but Nick could tell he didn’t like whatever it was.

“Yeah,” Nick said, voice a little rough. He stood to clear their dishes, needing to get away from Seiji and his sad eyes.

Nick would do anything to be with the person he loved. If they wanted him to stay with them at all. Seiji had to see how hard it would be for him to give up without a fight now. But Seiji obviously didn’t _want_ Nick to stay with him.

Maybe his coldness was a kindness, a way to try and dissuade Nick.

Nick wished he’d never thawed at all because now it was too late.


	48. Chapter 48

Nicholas was in love with Eugene. Seiji had assumed the feeling was mutual, but he saw now that it wasn’t. Selfishly, part of him wondered if that might mean Nicholas would remain married to _him_ since there was nothing but unrequited love waiting for him outside this marriage. He knew it was wrong of him to contemplate or hope for. But he couldn’t bring himself to broach the topic of divorce again. So he didn’t. He set his mind on other things. Like the disaster that Aiden Kane had brewing for them and how to stop it.

“Do you want to keep him?”

Seiji looked up, surprised to find Jesse in his office at Katayama Headquarters. Jesse no longer worked here.

“Did we have an appointment?” Seiji asked blandly, not in the mood to engage in a duel against Jesse. Jesse, however, seemed to be in the mood to push for what he wanted. He was always in that mood.

Jesse let himself in, closing the door behind himself and taking a seat at Seiji’s desk. _At least_ , Seiji thought with an inward sigh, _he’s not sitting on my desk this time._

“I’ve just heard it out of Dad that there’s an out. And Nick might take it.”

“Which could bring you back into the picture,” Seiji realized. He’d been so concerned with Nicholas and Aiden and even with Eugene, he hadn’t spared a thought to consider Jesse. “You could have your place in the world back. I take it you’re here to convince me to press Nicholas for a divorce and ask him to sign everything over to you?”

It was a far more distasteful thing than Seiji remembered, acknowledging himself as the collateral of business deals instead of playing the part of husband.

“We were friends once,” Jesse said, not answering the question and fiddling with a bookend he’d plucked off Seiji’s desk in that way he liked to—Jesse Coste’s full attention was not easily won and Jesse liked to make it known. “Do you remember? As children, we were thick as thieves. Before we started to see each other as possessions to be kept in place.”

“If that’s the way you saw me, I don’t understand why you’re here if not to, as you say, put me back in my place.”

“How did you see me, then?” Jesse asked curiously, looking up from his preoccupation.

“An enemy.”

Jesse nodded. “Makes sense. But we _used_ to be friends. I can help you. If you want to keep your current husband, I have an idea that might keep Aiden under control.”

“You can’t possibly think I’ll believe that you want to help me in the name of our childhood friendship when doing so is directly detrimental to your own best interest.”

Again, Jesse nodded, offering Seiji a slight tip of his chin and a small smile that charmed so many when they caught him red-handed.

“I’m not a very selfless person, am I?”

“No.”

“Fine, then. Suffice it to say there’s something in it for me too.” Jesse replaced the bookend and leveled his full attention on Seiji. His expression was intense, almost fierce. “Nicholas Cox waltzed into my life and took it all from me. But I won’t let Nicholas Katayama do the same. There’s something I won’t let him have. But you, Seiji, dear, are not it. So do you want to keep him or not?”

* * *

“Are you going to tell us what this is about?” Nicholas asked. He was in a peevish mood because Seiji hadn’t filled him in before inviting Harvard over for dinner.

“I think we can all agree,” Seiji said over lasagna, “that one way or another, removing Aiden as a variable from this equation is beneficial. Whatever outcome we hope for, having him sow gossip and chaos is less than productive.”

“Okay,” Nicholas agreed. But Harvard was staring thoughtfully at Seiji.

“I assumed,” he said, “that you were looking for legal counsel. I can’t offer any legal action you can preemptively take against Aiden for spreading malicious rumors.”

“I’m not looking for legal action. We have a common goal, don’t we? Coste Motor’s prosperity is to your best interest. And if we can stop Aiden before he becomes a problem—,”

“More of a problem than he already is,” Nicholas corrected.

“—then you won’t have to take legal action against him. It would be easier that way, don’t you agree?”

“I’m happy to help however I can,” Harvard said.

“Seiji, can’t you just out and spill whatever scheme you’ve come up with?” Nicholas’s dry voice betrayed his impatience, even his irritation. But far from being annoyed at his husband’s tone, Seiji was pathetically pleased to hear his name in Nicholas’s mouth. All week, Seiji had waited to hear Nicholas call him _Katayama_ again. Each time he heard _Seiji_ instead, Seiji couldn’t help the relief he felt.

“Actually,” he said flatly, betraying no sign that he’d noticed or cared what Nicholas called him, “it’s Jesse’s scheme.”

“And we trust it?”

“Possibly. Harvard, forgive me, but you know Aiden, don’t you?”

“What?” Nicholas asked. But Seiji wasn’t paying him any mind now. His eyes were on Harvard and he could tell that he was right—that Jesse was right. About this much, at least.

“We went to school together,” Harvard said cautiously, trying to figure out where Seiji was going with this.

“There’s no way Aiden went to Harvard Law,” Nicholas scoffed.

“High school,” Harvard clarified. “And middle school. And elementary school. Why is that important?” he asked Seiji.

“Jesse is under the impression that you hold an impressive amount of sway over Aiden.”

“Oh, no, I’m sorry, but I don’t have that much say over what he does. He’ll sometimes listen to me when he’s in the mood to be talked out of bad decisions, but he won’t listen to me on this. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I can’t help in this way.”

“Are you sure? Jesse has a sharp eye and is disturbingly good at reading people. He says that Aiden would move mountains if you asked him. I know you two had a falling out, but if he’s remained in love with you for so many years, I don’t believe it’s outrageous to think—,”

“Aiden’s not in love with me,” Harvard cut in firmly.

“On that point, Jesse was certain—,”

“Jesse was wrong.”

“He heard it from Aiden himself.”

“Impossible. Jesse must have misunderstood some comment Aiden made. He doesn’t love me, and he doesn’t talk about feelings. Especially not to Jesse Coste of all people. No offense meant to your brother, Nicholas.”

“No, I agree. Jesse’s the last person I’d talk to about feelings,” Nicholas said.

“I didn’t ask for the minutes on their conversation,” Seiji took over, steering discussion back on track, “but I don’t think it should be discounted.”

“Why not?” Harvard asked, clearly with no intention to reevaluate his ruling on this.

“Because they had a meeting to discuss a potential union.”

The dining room had been quiet already, but at these words the silence rang through the room, becoming so prominent it was loud.

“Like— _marriage?”_ Nicholas asked. Seiji nodded.

“A proposition, apparently, for a business through marriage arrangement between them was discussed.”

“What came of it?” Harvard asked urgently.

“I don’t know,” Seiji admitted. “Jesse didn’t want to talk about it. But he was convinced by the end of the meeting that Aiden was in love, very specifically and certainly, with _you.”_

“That can’t be right,” Harvard said hoarsely, looking distraught and confused, a furrow in his brow deeper than Seiji had ever seen before. “Aiden rejected me in high school.” It wasn’t a confession Seiji and Nicholas should be hearing—Seiji could tell that Harvard was mostly speaking to himself, trying to make sense of it all. And they just happened to be here to bear accidental witness. “When I realized how I felt, I tried to tell him but he didn’t want to hear it. Aiden’s never been good at commitment or serious emotions, I should have known better than to bring something as heavy as love to the table but I thought…I thought I was different. But he shut me down before I could get far at all in my confession. Aiden doesn’t love me, he threw away over ten years of friendship rather than deal with me loving him. He burned it all to the ground to get away from it. From me.”

“Maybe he was scared,” Nicholas offered.

“Maybe he didn’t understand,” Seiji said, almost in unison with Nicholas.

Harvard startled, coming back to himself and pulling out of his memories of an old friend. An old hurt. An old love.

“You should probably talk to him,” Nicholas said.

“I’m not using whatever feelings he does or doesn’t have for me as leverage against him,” Harvard said warningly but Nicholas laughed, shaking his head.

“I didn’t mean you should seduce him into being nicer to me and Seiji. I don’t think I really believe talking could get through to him at all, even from you. But…you still love him, don’t you? You talk like you do.”

“Only because I don’t know how to stop.” Harvard scrubbed a hand over his close-cropped curls in frustration.

“And there’s a chance that he loves you too. Isn’t that worth talking about? Isn’t it worth trying this again before there’s another business through marriage meeting? Or an actual marriage?”

Harvard’s chair screeched against the floor horribly as he shot to his feet abruptly. He looked almost crazed at the reminder of the marriage meeting.

“I’m sorry,” Harvard said, “but I have to go. Thank you for dinner, it was great!”

“I don’t think he even had any dinner,” Nicholas said, blinking after Harvard as the sound of their front door slamming shut echoed through the house.

“Pity,” Seiji said, smiling privately at his own piece of lasagna. “It’s very good.”

“You really think fixing their love life will magic away our Aiden problems?”

“I think it’s more likely than any other solution.”

Jesse had been very persuasive in his confidence that the plan would work.

“I hope it works out for them.”

“Me too.”


	49. Chapter 49

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sometimes writing is fun and sometimes writing is spending 5 hours on the same 164 words  
> I'm not telling you _which_ 164 words but i hope you enjoy them lmfao

“Was there anything else we needed to discuss, or does that conclude the meeting?” Robert asked.

“That’s all I needed to go over today,” Nick confirmed, standing up as the two men across his desk did likewise, offering a handshake to both. “Thank you for joining me.”

Jesse nodded once, politely. He’d been quiet and dour the whole meeting, not even offering input on the color schemes for branding beyond proposing them.

“Why don’t you make a decision on the branding and get back to Jesse on it in…” Robert trailed off, waiting for Jesse to offer a time. Jesse should have been the one asking Nick for a decision in the first place, but Jesse took several beats to realize his input was required at all.

“By the seventeenth, shall we say?” Jesse asked distractedly. Nick wasn’t sure he’d been following the conversation. “Yes, a fortnight should give you plenty of time to…” Jesse glanced at the papers on the table, obviously reorienting himself to the meeting. “Make a decision on the branding.”

“More than enough time,” Nick agreed, pretty sure that Jesse _hadn’t_ been paying attention—no way would it take two weeks to make such a simple decision.

With that settled, Robert left them to return to his own office. Jesse was slower. Glancing at the door that Robert had let close shut behind him, Nick decided now was a good time to ask what he’d wondered three nights ago over a strange dinner with an unexpected guest and an even more unexpected conclusion.

“Why did you help?”

“Father dearest put me on your project, remember? It’s my job.”

“You know I’m not talking about colors.”

“I had a solution to your problem,” Jesse said shortly. “You’re welcome.”

“It hasn’t worked yet.”

“It will.”

“What’re you up to?”

“Up to?” Jesse asked imperiously. But Nick didn’t back down from Jesse’s mocking tone.

“Yeah. Why are you helping us? And why not tell Harvard that Aiden loves him yourself if you’re so sure of it and set on getting them together?”

“Because Harvard isn’t _my_ lawyer, and I’m hardly going to try giving Aiden love advice. I hear that Harvard’s got a good heart, I thought he’d be more willing to help and believe _you_ and your husband than me.”

“But why do _you_ want to help me and my husband?” Nick asked again. “What do you get from—supposedly—keeping Aiden from making mine and Seiji’s life difficult?”

“Other than the obvious?” Jesse raised an eyebrow at Nick, conveying that he believed Nick was being terribly stupid as he explained _the obvious._ “You and your reputation are tied to my company. What fucks with you, fucks with it, fucks with me.”

“My company,” Nick corrected, admittedly rather pettily.

“That I still work at.” Jesse’s calm slipped a moment, the words cutting sharply from his mouth before he closed it again.

“And if it helps keep me and Seiji stay married?”

“You’ll stay married anyway, for all I know,” Jesse said, but he hesitated, saying the words too carefully. Nick didn’t trust him.

“Why are you helping us? What’s in it for you?”

“It’s simple, really. All I wanted was to ensure Aiden won’t be bullied into signing any marriage contract with me no matter the turn out of your relationship troubles, it just so happens that my solution offers you and your unfortunate husband one as well.”

“You went to all that trouble just to make sure Aiden was unavailable?”

“Marrying Aiden Kane is _not_ something I’m interested in.”

“Why not?”

Jesse’s shoulders tensed—his entire body seized up. Nick had only seen him so obviously unsettled twice before.

“Why not?” Jesse repeated with a snarl.

“I mean, I just thought you might be interested in a match with him. Since he’d be a beneficial asset or whatever.”

“Do you speak to your husband like that?”

“What?”

_“Why not?_ Seiji, _why not_ marry Jesse? Did you ask _him_ that?”

“Why would I—?”

“Because I’m a good match. If you denounce my name, I get it all back and, suddenly, I’ll be the best choice again. The most advantageous spouse. I’d be a beneficial asset, so why not have Seiji marry me, right?”

“Because you’re vile, that’s why not!” Nick retaliated, temper sparking in response to Jesse’s flare.

“Did it ever occur to you that that’s just how it is? I know you’re new to the game, but I was advised by a team of lawyers when I was four on how best to avoid getting abused or taken advantage of for the rest of my life. That’s how these contracts _work_ , Nick—Nicholas. I don’t want one with Aiden Kane. No matter if it would help your stupid company.”

Jesse shouldered out of the office, leaving Nick to stunned, numb silence, all anger suddenly drained from him. He thought about going after Jesse, but what would he say? _I wasn’t saying_ I _wanted you to marry Aiden, I don’t care what you do_? Nick shook his head and left it, returning to his desk to look over the notes from the meeting, which, up until his conversation with Jesse, had actually gone well.

But his mind wouldn’t focus on the notes and the only decision he came to was that if the only thing dinner with Harvard achieved was to ensure there’d be no marriage contract between Aiden and Jesse, Nick would still be glad for it.

* * *

By lunch, Nick was badly in need of a break from the office. He left his desk in disarray and made for the elevator. When it let him out on the first floor, he saw a familiar man. His immediate instinct was to duck into an alcove of his own damn main lobby.

Aiden Kane was bad news and Nick didn’t feel like being abducted today—for seduction _or_ murder purposes. He was trying to think of an alternate route out when someone else appeared in the lobby. Someone else that Nick recognized.

As Nick watched in amazement, Harvard Lee strode across the floor with a bounce in his step. When he got to Aiden, he stopped short and seemed to stutter in his movements, unsure what to do. Then he held out his hand.

_What are you doing giving him your hand like that?_ Nick thought incredulously. _Are you trying to shake his?_

Luckily, Aiden evidently found the attempted handshake endearing because he took it in his, lacing fingers of opposite hands together rather than performing the aforementioned shake. Then he leaned briefly into Harvard. Nick didn’t have a good angle to observe the specifics of what Aiden did, leaned in that close to Harvard. But he had a pretty good guess.

Nick had seen Aiden Kane kiss plenty of boys at parties and had been the recipient of his flirtations himself. None of the kisses or attempted kisses Nick had ever seen looked anything like this one. It was brief and when Aiden pulled away, he tucked his long hair behind his ear and something like a nervous laugh escaped him as he cast his eyes down, head tipping to hide an honest blush. But Harvard caught him under the chin and tilted his head back up—

Nick looked away. He shouldn’t have watched them as long as he had but it was so alien, Aiden acting like that with anyone. He seemed genuine. And happy. And nervous. And Nick thought Seiji was right, or Jesse was right. Aiden obviously loved Harvard.

Nick heard the compression of air as the lobby door opened, and he looked up again in time to see the two men exiting the building hand in hand. Nick thought their heads were tipped ever so slightly toward each other, like they were both afraid the other would disappear if they stopped paying attention.

Nick pulled out his phone and summoned up a contact before consciously deciding he wanted to make the call.

“Nicholas?” Seiji asked on the first ring.

“I’m on lunch, what about you?”

“What about me?” Seiji asked suspiciously.

“Can you get off now? Actually, never mind. I don’t care. I’m gonna grab us some lunch and come over. Wait for me at your office.”

“I—,”

Nick hung up the line.

* * *

Seiji had listened to Nick’s request. Nick found him pouring over work when he came in and sat down, unpacking the salad he’d selected for Seiji and the grilled cheese he’d gotten for himself.

“I saw Aiden at the office just now.”

“Oh?”

“I’m pretty sure he was there to pick Harvard up for a lunch date.”

“Pretty sure?”

“I’m also pretty sure they kissed.”

“Nicholas, you shouldn’t eavesdrop.”

“You’re one to talk, you got way more up in their business than I did. Anyway, if they’re concerned with people seeing them, they shouldn’t do that in the lobby during lunch hour.”

“I suspect we’ll be hearing from Harvard shortly to tell us that the Aiden situation is under control.”

“I don’t think he’s with Aiden for our benefit, love.”

Seiji’s brow wrinkled and Nick realized his slip. He expected to be snapped at about silly names, but Seiji seemed in too good a mood from the Aiden development to spare a scolding.

“Nor do I,” Seiji replied evenly. “But I’m sure it will come up—it really would create more work for Harvard if Aiden decided to go smearing the company that employs him.”

“Huh, I guess that’s true.” Nick took a bite of his sandwich and squinted eyes at Seiji. “You look pleased with yourself.”

“It simplifies matters greatly if we can get Aiden on our side.”

“Uh-huh. You never doubted it would work. How were you so sure?”

“I never expected Harvard to try and strong-arm Aiden into anything in the name of love. But business and marriage do work well together—it is, in a way, a less extreme and more effective version of Robert’s plan to unite Coste Motor and Kane Industries. They’ll work for the best interest of each other now, and Harvard’s interests align with ours.”

“Was it your idea or Jesse’s to mention the marriage proposal between them?”

“Jesse’s.”

“Play on the assumption that Harvard wouldn’t risk losing Aiden to a business marriage on the off-chance that what you said was true. Clever.”

“Jesse has his moments,” Seiji hummed, still smiling to himself in the small subtle way he had.

Nick scowled at the conversation’s turn toward praising Jesse, but he was the one that had steered it here. It was only that _Seiji_ smiling to himself while speaking of Jesse was different from Nick giving the guy the credit he probably deserved. Sighing, Nick forced the frustration gathering in him at the thought of Jesse in the same context as Seiji to loosen. Nick knew Jesse probably deserved more than just credit.

_I was advised by a team of lawyers when I was four…_

Like Seiji, he deserved better than what he’d gotten. It was just hard to remember that when Nick was looking at Seiji and seeing a man who wouldn’t accept compliments or kindnesses without a fight because it was what he’d learned while with Jesse. And so what if Seiji could smile now when speaking of Jesse? Wasn’t that better than the alternative? It didn’t do any of them any good for Nick to hold a grudge in Seiji’s stead.

“You shouldn’t worry,” Seiji said.

“Huh?”

“We _didn’t_ bargain with their emotions.”

“What—Harvard and Aiden?”

“Yes. You’re worried that we manipulated their feelings and used them to our advantage, aren’t you?”

“I…” hadn’t been thinking that at all. But Seiji knew, of course, how much Nick disliked his bargaining mentality toward affection. Looking into Seiji’s face, Nick thought _he_ was the one worrying. “I think you did a good thing. I mean, they clearly love each other. Whatever it was that pushed them to see it doesn’t matter in the end. They’re happy.”

Seiji nodded with the air of someone who’d just won an argument, but the crease between his severe eyebrows let up a little and it was Nick’s turn to smile. He’d been worried about what Nick thought of him for his willingness to tie love and business together.

By the end of lunch, Nick had an email from Harvard asking to meet briefly later this afternoon. Seiji wasn’t surprised and was only further pleased at the news.

“I’ll call you afterwards,” Nick said in way of goodbye, standing with the wrappings of their lunch to toss in the bin on his way out.


	50. Chapter 50

Nick’s amazement at the display he’d overseen in the lobby lingered with him even as afternoon bled to evening. It was already astounding to see _Aiden Kane_ smile with shy sincerity instead of the slippery and sharp quality Nick was used to seeing in Aiden’s smiles, but the fact that there were years of heartbreak and bad blood between Aiden and the man that could so effortlessly draw that smile out in him? That they’d still managed to work it out and come together? That they both looked so happy? It was a better argument for the existence—the possibility—of real love and happy endings than Nick had ever seen.

It was nice to have the Aiden threat under control—Harvard had assured him, just as Seiji had predicted, that Aiden was done kicking up trouble for Coste Motor. And it was good, too, that Jesse was free of any further marriage obligations when he’d been so upset by the idea of a contract with Aiden. But the best part of it all was the simple show of love between two people. If Harvard and Aiden could work their shit out, maybe it wasn’t impossible for Nick to figure his out…

“Seiji, are you home?” Nick called from the entryway as he peeled off his shoes.

“No need to shout,” Seiji’s calm voice returned. “Where else would I be? My car’s here.”

“Yeah.” Nick found Seiji in the kitchen, making himself a cup of tea. “But you’ve disappeared on me before.”

“Not tonight.”

“Good. I think we should talk.”

Seiji’s pause was understated but Nick saw it. Saw the way his entire body came to a halt before being pushed back into motion, hand moving his tea to his lips for a sip. He looked as casual as Seiji ever did, but Nick knew that this topic was as daunting to Seiji as it was to Nick. Possibly, Seiji was even nervous.

“Yes,” he agreed, setting down his mug. “I believe it is time we discuss our options.”

“I know which option I like best,” Nick said slowly. “But I’d like to hear your thoughts. What do you want?”

Seiji shook his head as slowly and carefully as Nick had spoken.

“It’s your livelihood, Nicholas, not mine. It’s your decision to make.”

“It’s not _just_ my livelihood, not just my life getting affected by the decision I make, no matter which one I make. Your opinion matters to me, Seiji. Please tell me what you’re thinking.”

“There is a lot to consider,” Seiji sighed. “It’s too much. I don’t know.” He looked tortured as he regarded Nick briefly before turning his attention back down to his mug, hands still loosely circled around it. “If you know what you wish to do, why not tell me? I can offer my opinions on that course of action and…” Seiji finished with a shrug. It was all very unlike him. The nervousness, the discomfort worn so obviously on his face, the meek opinions, the shrugging. Nick watched him closely for a time.

“Okay,” he eventually decided, realizing that Seiji wasn’t in a state to indulge pushing. He looked on the edge of a great precipice and Nick worried he’d fall into it if pushed. So he made the leap himself instead. “I want to stay married.”

The confession hung like an echo in the air, the world gone still and silent but for Nick’s words. Then they settled properly into reality and Seiji’s eyes snapped up.

“You do?”

“Yes,” Nick said, stopping himself from fidgeting. “I—I don’t want to renounce my heritage and sign everything over to Jesse. Maybe I should, and maybe it’s selfish of me not to, now that I know I can give it all back—I wasn’t supposed to have any of this,” Nick brandished to the pristine, perfect kitchen; to the pristine, perfect man standing in it. “But I’d rather keep it now that I do. If I can.”

Seiji stared at him with huge eyes. Had he expected Nick to say something different— _wanted_ him to say something different? But Seiji’s face smoothed back out and he nodded.

“Yes,” he said, “I think that’s the wisest move. To sign everything away and pass ownership of the company to another—so soon after it was discovered that Jesse was not legally entitled to the company—could destabilize everything. It would certainly make Coste Motor, and by association Katayama Energy, appear weak and confused. It is…advantageous to remain married and continue as we have been.”

Nick absorbed Seiji’s assessment with nothing but a sound of agreement. Of course, all Seiji was thinking about was business. _Advantageous_. That was all their marriage was.

“Then that’s that crisis averted,” Nick said, overly cheerful to try and hide his disappointment.

There was no reason to be disappointed. It was what he’d expected, wasn’t it? Hell, it was better than what he’d feared. Seiji could have demanded Nick set his life back on its predicted trajectory by signing away his claim to the Coste name and then signing off on divorce papers.

“Indeed. Will you tell Robert of our decision? I suspect he will be relieved by it.”

“Yeah,” Nick said. “I’ll let him know. He’ll probably be happy. Jesse, though…”

“He’ll manage,” Seiji dismissed. “He has thus far, hasn’t he?”

“And so have you.” Nick cracked a grin, going for easy humor. “You have to have gotten used to living with the consolation prize by now.”

Again, Seiji’s eyes darted up from his tea in alarm. He regarded Nick with pulled-tight brows and a tiny corner of lip between his teeth. At last, he spoke, voice soft and quiet.

“I think you’ve misunderstood, or perhaps I’ve misled you, but I dreaded marrying Jesse. Every moment we spent together was another battle in the war that we called an engagement. I don’t…I don’t _hate_ him, I don’t even think I dislike him now that I never have to think of him, but when I thought I was meant to marry him? To spend the rest of my life negotiating terms with him? I did not like to so much as speak with him and did my best to avoid seeing him. That is—what I’m trying to say is…I prefer this. Marrying you instead of Jesse was a most agreeable arrangement, though I did not at first realize it.”

Nick tried not to read too much into the admission. It made sense that Seiji liked this arrangement better than the one he’d expected his whole life. Nick still remembered the nature of some of the bargains Seiji had tried to strike with him at the start of this whole relationship. The same bargains he and Jesse had spent years hammering out. Nick, who was too new to the game to want to play it properly, was a better alternative to that. But Nick felt an ache in his chest at Seiji’s dulcet words and downcast eyes and fingers worrying at the mug they held.

He ached for the Seiji that had grown up tied up in those bargains, fighting those battles, and now softly confessing to relief at escaping them through Nick. And he ached for the Seiji that meant he was glad to have married Nick for a bigger reason than bargains and business—he ached because that Seiji did not actually exist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they talked :)


	51. Chapter 51

“My son will be joining us today,” Charles Kane said when Seiji arrived at the man’s office for yet another meeting. “I hope you don’t mind.”

The way Charles smiled made Seiji sure that Charles thought he was up to something brilliant. That he thought he had some sort of upper hand. Aiden’s presence here could only mean Charles thought his plan was on track.

“That’s perfectly agreeable,” Seiji replied without pause, entering the office and nodding to Aiden, already seated in one of the chairs at his father’s desk. “Good afternoon, Aiden.”

“Seiji,” Aiden returned lazily, tipping his head in greeting.

“Let’s begin,” Charles said, ushering Seiji to the seat beside Aiden and taking the one behind his desk.

“It’s embarrassing, isn’t it?” Aiden wondered. “Having to come here and renegotiate a deal that was all but made before you took it over?”

“The strongest deals can take years to build,” Seiji replied tersely.

But, in truth, Seiji did find it embarrassing to be sitting before this desk like a child. This entire deal had been irksome, and it wasn’t only Nicholas’s initial disruption that was causing problems. It was the way Charles seemed unwilling to acknowledge Seiji as an equal. They hardly went a single meeting without him suggesting Seiji call in his parents.

“The strongest deals,” Aiden drawled, “are built between people starting on the same level.”

Seiji bristled. How was Aiden able to pinpoint the exact issue Seiji’s thoughts had snagged on?

“Have your parents looked over your newest proposal like I asked?”

The patronizing tone and simpering condescension in Charles’s face was what did it. Finally, Seiji was done. He would not tolerate these games anymore.

“I am not a child turning in a school project, Charles, and I tire of this game. Your son is right, the strongest deals _are_ built between people on equal ground. I am beginning to think that any deal you and I could strike would simply fall apart in time.” Briskly, Seiji stood. “Let’s stop wasting each other’s time, the deal is—,”

“Let’s not be hasty,” Aiden said, sounding as disinterested when he said it as he always did.

Seiji glanced down at the man, trying to figure out what new game _this_ was. Aiden’s expression gave nothing away but Charles’s did. Something in his face, for just a moment, looked nervous. So he _did_ want this deal, then. But he’d pushed Seiji too far.

“I’ve spent a year negotiating with your father,” Seiji spoke to Aiden. “I do not think it is hasty to say that we are unlikely to agree upon terms.”

“But you haven’t spent any time negotiating with me.”

“Pardon?” Seiji asked, so surprised that he looked to Charles again, wondering if that was why Aiden was here. But Charles looked as surprised as he was.

“The strongest deals are made between equals. It’s your first business endeavor as lead. And it just so happens that I’ve never led a deal before either. Let’s start fresh, you and me.”

“Aiden—,” Charles said sharply. He didn’t like this idea.

Seiji’s mouth twitched into a smile.

“That would be most agreeable. Reschedule with me when you have authority over this deal.”

Aiden nodded and flounced a hand at Seiji, almost shooing him to the door.

“Toodles,” he called.

Seiji exited the office, hearing Charles’s growls as soon as he pulled closed the door. And amidst it, he heard Aiden retort that Charles shouldn’t have tested Seiji’s patience, that he’d brought this upon himself.

Seiji didn’t know what Aiden was up to. Or if any deal could be struck between them. But it seemed more promising than the tail-chasing he and Charles had been doing for a year.

* * *

It was not even a week before Seiji got a call from Aiden about the deal, which he had, apparently, managed to wrestle from his father. And, quite opposite of Seiji’s past experiences with the Kane deal, they arranged to meet with no time lost. Aiden came to Katayama Headquarters on Friday that same week.

“Let’s get this thing over with, shall we?” Aiden asked, sitting down and reaching for Seiji’s folder before it was even offered.

“I’ve made slight modifications since the last draft your father saw. I assume you are familiar?”

“Oh, sure. I read up on all ninety-seven versions of this thing because I am a terribly boring person with nothing more interesting to do in my spare time.”

“Why?” Seiji asked, unable to stop the question.

Aiden looked up from the folder and raised an eyebrow sardonically.

“Why am I helping you?”

“Is that what you’re doing?”

“Yes. Perhaps love changes people. Or perhaps I’m tired of my father’s shitty business practices. The Katayama deal is far from the first he’s deployed me on. But the trouble is, I’m no longer available for deployment, and Kane Industries will be mine one day, assuming I don’t get disowned before dear old dad fucks off and gives it to me. It’s time to start some building of my own. This deal,” Aiden tapped a finger on the documents, “really is quite beneficial to both of us. Not as grand a prize as exclusive rights to your engines, but it will do. I was talking to that little friend of yours—the blond one. Annoying as hell…Justin? Jerry?”

“And what does he have to do with this?”

“Quite a lot, according to Harvard. But little Jimmy has a keen eye for spotting love, I suppose. He says you’re in love with your husband.”

_In love._

Seiji didn’t even have time to try fighting off the flush that washed over his whole body. The words were like an instant trigger.

In love.

What a vast and unfamiliar concept. It was one thing to like Nicholas, to wish to remain his husband, but _in love?_ Seiji had never thought of it.

“Exactly,” Aiden said, nodding as if Seiji had actually said anything. “So splitting you two up isn’t happening. And Harvard says he won’t work for Kane Industries, something about unethical work practices just because I offered to promote him and quadruple his pay if he left Coste Motor.”Aiden rolled his eyes dramatically, but he seemed to be unable to speak of Harvard for long without smiling. “This looks good,” Aiden said, switching tracks suddenly and reaching into his pocket for a glittery gel pen.

“You’re going to sign it?” Seiji asked, startled. “Just like that? No negotiations?”

“My father,” Aiden said, dotting the ‘i’ in his name with a heart, “is going to be pissed.”

He sounded downright giddy at the thought.

* * *

“You’ll never believe the morning I had,” Seiji said when Nicholas got home from Eugene’s.

“Yeah?” Nicholas asked, coming to sit on the couch next to Seiji and kicking his feet up on the coffee table. Seiji batted them back off again. “How was Aiden? You never answered my texts.”

Because Seiji had wanted to share the news in person, but he didn’t say that.

“Aiden closed the deal.”

A beat of silence.

Then, “No shit?”

“None at all,” Seiji replied.

Nicholas whooped.

“You did it!” Nicholas grabbed Seiji abruptly and pulled him to his chest in a tight, happy hug. “You closed your first deal!”

“I know,” Seiji said, hands hovering hopelessly above Nicholas’s back. Was he meant to hug him in return? Was he allowed to?

In love…

Aiden was right about Jesse’s keen eye. He’d spotted Aiden’s love for Harvard, and Seiji’s for Nicholas. And Nicholas’s for someone else.

Seiji did not return the hug.


	52. Chapter 52

Nick knew that it was unreasonable of him to be disappointed with how his life was going. By all accounts, everything was going great. Aiden was done causing trouble, Seiji had closed his deal, and Nick got to keep his husband.

His husband who didn’t love him. Who didn’t even seem to _like_ him much these days. Maybe Nick had misread something somewhere, misunderstood something. But he’d thought they were getting along until the loophole came to light. He might have hoped, stupidly optimistically, that they could get back to that once it was all settled, once Aiden and their decision were dealt with. But they hadn’t. Seiji continued to pull away from Nick at every turn.

“You should come with me,” Nick told Seiji as he pulled on his sneakers. “Eugene says his mom keeps reminding him to make it clear you’ve got a standing invitation too. Actually, she cornered me about it the last time I was over. It’s like she thinks I’m intentionally sneaking out without you. You’re not busy, are you?”

“I don’t want to intrude,” Seiji replied, arms crossed and mouth frowning as he watched Nick prepare to leave. “You go have fun, I’ll stay home.”

“Don’t be boring.”

Nick found his hand trying to reach for Seiji, to persuade him out the door. He caught it in time and dropped the attempted touch. Seiji kept snapping at him about personal space; the hug he’d been allowed last night had been in celebration over the deal, but Seiji had only _tolerated_ that. And he wouldn’t tolerate tugging.

“Sorry I’m not as fun as Eugene,” Seiji said defensively, turning on his heel. “That’s all the more reason I shouldn’t go, I’m not pleasant company.”

“Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” Nick said, trying not to provoke Seiji but also finding this tiny temper tantrum a little funny. “Come on, Seiji, you’re plenty of fun. Come with me.”

“I don’t—,”

“I want you to come. Please?”

Nick didn’t expect it to work. But, slowly, Seiji turned back around, some sort of war happening on his face. Nick wished he knew how to smooth out that troubled expression.

“I…suppose I can make the time to come.”

Nick snorted. “Good, if you had dinner plans on a Saturday, I’d be worried.”

“You have dinner plans frequently,” Seiji pointed out.

“With friends, and I always invite you.”

“You do not.”

“Really?” Nick thought about it. “Huh, guess not. But that’s because you always say no. Anyway, the point is you’re always invited. You just don’t like greasy foods. Or people.”

“Now you’re just reminding me of all the reasons I shouldn’t go.”

“You’ll like it. The Labaos are good people and they make good food.”

Seiji never dispatched his frown as he pulled on his shoes and followed Nick out of the house. But he did climb into Nick’s car, did come as Nick had asked. So that was something. Nick hadn’t even had to pull out the big guns to make it happen— _isn’t it strange that my husband never comes with me to social outings?_ he could have asked. But all he’d needed to say was _please_.

“Seiji!” Eugene said when he opened the door on them. “You’ve finally come to visit. About time—come on in.”

Eugene stepped aside and they both piled into the house.

Seiji clearly didn’t know what to do with Eugene’s siblings any better now than he had in August, but that was alright because the Labao siblings didn’t care if you knew what to do with them—they’d pull you into conversations and games all the same. Years ago, they’d pulled him into the family.

“I’m so glad you could make it, Seiji,” Eugene’s mom said, extracting Seiji gracefully from the tangle of gangly teenage boys bombarding him with greetings and questions. “Dinner will be an hour, but I trust that my boys can keep you entertained,” she gestured to them, and Nick didn’t miss that he got included in the broad sweep of her hand too. “Boys, mind your manners and try not to scare Seiji off.”

There were some vague sounds and gestures of agreement. Elizabeth patted Seiji’s shoulder with a fond smile before leaving him to the care of ‘her boys.’ Seiji’s expression as he regarded them wasn’t mean, but it was wary. There was always a lot going on in this house and Seiji wasn’t fond of situations with too many variables to keep proper track of. But he did just fine managing the noise of the boys until Nick saw fit to ferret him away from it. And when Nick reached for his hand, Seiji allowed him to take it and show him through the house on a tour, which Eugene stayed strangely subdued during, letting Nick give the rundown of the place.

The tour ended at the well-loved patio table in the backyard, Seiji’s hand falling from Nick’s as the three of them pulled up chairs. Nick sat down and Seiji followed suit after only a quick mistrustful glance down at the seat he was meant to sit in.

“Can I get either of you something to drink?” Eugene asked, hands in pockets as he stood by his own chair.

“Got any root beer?” Nick asked.

“You know it. Seiji? We’ve got _beer_ beer too, or—,”

“No,” Seiji said hurriedly. “No, thank you, Eugene. I’ll have a water, please.”

“Coming up,” Eugene nodded, ambling back inside to fetch them drinks.

“Still not recovered from your birthday, huh?” Nick asked with a chuckle.

Seiji scowled and looked out over the yard, pointedly not meeting Nick’s eyes. He was blushing just faintly, embarrassed by whatever mixed moments of that night he remembered. Nick still remembered that night perfectly. Guiltily, his mind slipped to it now. Seiji’s closeness and openness. The feel of his hair the next morning when he’d let Nick run fingers through it as he burrowed miserably into bed.

“I don’t think alcohol is for me,” Seiji said stiffly. “I don’t enjoy not having control over my facilities.”

“You do like your control,” Nick agreed. “Definitely don’t drink without me around.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t trust anyone else to take care of you, that’s why not.”

“I don’t need…” Seiji trailed off, color deepening. “I don’t know that I ever thanked you,” he said, quieter. “For taking care of me on my birthday.”

“Yeah,” Nick said, trying not to stare at Seiji, trying to be casual and cool and not stupidly entranced by the pretty blush on his pretty face. “Yeah, any time.”

“You seem happy here,” Seiji said, changing the topic with little subtlety.

“I am. I love these guys. Hey,” Nick glanced at the door and then leaned in, beckoning Seiji closer to lend him an ear. “Does Eugene seem off to you?”

“Off?”

“Yeah, like…something’s up, don’t you think?”

Seiji frowned.

“I didn’t notice, but he is rather less rowdy than usual, isn’t he?”

“And he looks sad, doesn’t he?”

“Maybe,” Seiji said hesitantly. “Is it—have you told him—?”

Eugene came back out onto the patio, drinks in hand, and sat down with them. He really did look off. There were bags under his eyes and his hair was its usual messy but without any of its usual life. He looked tired. Sad. But then he grinned and the exhaustion seemed to fall away from him. Nick knew Eugene well enough to know it hadn’t, not really.

“What’re you scamps talking about?” he asked cheerily, popping open his can.

“Nothing,” Seiji replied right away.

Eugene raised eyebrows at Nick and Nick shrugged.

“Just reminiscing about Jeffers’ mixology skills.”

“Jeffers…he the one that fed Seiji half the bar at his birthday?”

“The very same,” Nick nodded. “I’m not surprised you remember him.”

“What does that mean?”

“Oh, come on, you like pretty things. Jeffers is exactly the type of guy you’d remember.”

Eugene made a face.

“Nick, man, he looks too much like you. He’s copied your hair.”

“You think I’m pretty?” Nick asked with fluttering eyelashes.

Seiji set his glass down on the table loudly.

“Nicholas,” he said clearly, “how was your meeting with Robert about marketing yesterday? I forgot to ask.”

“It was fine. Jesse attended too, but he was in a bad mood again.”

“What sort of bad mood?” Eugene asked.

“What?”

“There’s lots of bad moods,” Eugene explained. “I was just wondering what sort Jesse’s was. Angry, sad…y’know, like, was he hangry or hurting?”

“I don’t know,” Nick said slowly. Was Jesse hurting? Maybe. Nick thought of the shouting match they’d had last time they’d been left in a room alone together. But what kind of a question was that? And why was Eugene asking it? “Why do you care?”

Eugene shrugged. “That changes how the meeting went, right? If he was throwing a fit or staying silent.”

“Yeah, I guess. Anyway, he brought a raincloud into the office with him but he didn’t cause any problems.”

Eugene nodded, still seeming strange. Troubled. There were a lot of rain clouds around as of late, Nick noted idly.


	53. Chapter 53

“Thank you for the meal, it was delicious,” Seiji said after dinner, trying to clear his plate but finding himself disallowed by his hosts.

“Told you this place is the best,” Nicholas whispered beside him.

Yes, Seiji did have to admit that the Labao residence was as good as any Seiji had been invited to before. In fact, he liked it quite a bit better than many of the stifling manors and tedious dinners he’d attended. But every time he started to feel at ease here, a prickle in the back of his skull brought him back to reality. There was a reason Nicholas liked it so much here, why he fit so well.

In the end, Seiji just felt like an intruder. He wondered how Nicholas could stand it, to be so close to having everything he wanted but not ever being able to reach it. Seiji found it excruciating to be here, to have Nicholas take his hand and show him around and drag him into conversations with lanky boys that were some mix of friend and surrogate little brother. To feel like he was being introduced to a family that meant something to Nicholas, to be allowed into his life and to be treated like a husband…to know that Nicholas didn’t feel that way for him at all. It must have hurt Nicholas too, to be such a part of this family, yet never allowed to join it in the way he wanted.

All through dinner, Nicholas had been glancing at Eugene. Eugene hadn’t noticed—Nicholas was right that something about him was more somber than usual. But Seiji noticed how Nicholas’s eyes kept finding Eugene. He couldn’t stop noticing. He shouldn’t have come here just because Nicholas had asked him to nicely. He hadn’t done any of them any favors by being here and intruding on Nicholas’s doomed feelings.

So it was with relief that he bid the Labaos goodbye and stepped from the halls of Nicholas’s alternate life—the life that he wanted but could never have.

“Nicholas,” Seiji said when they climbed back into his car to go home. Even to his own ears, his voice sounded too soft to count as anything besides morose.

“Seiji?” Nicholas returned, giving him a concerned look before putting the car in drive. Seiji hated how much he liked to hear his name on Nicholas’s lips, even still, even when it was no longer a novelty to hear it.

“If you want…you can change your mind.”

“About what?”

“About us. I know you haven’t told Robert yet of our decision and—and if you want to reconsider, it’s not too late.” Maybe in time, Eugene would return Nicholas’s feelings. He’d been distressed tonight. If Nicholas had told Eugene of his intention to stay married to Seiji, perhaps that was the source of his mood and Nicholas was blind to it only because he’d convinced himself he’d never hold that affection from the one he wanted.

“Do you want to reconsider?” Nicholas asked in careful measure.

“I wanted to offer you the option.”

“I’ve already said what I want. But we can reconsider if that’s what _you_ want.”

They drove much of the way home in silence, Nicholas keeping his usual jabbering to himself, leaving the returned offer hanging between them. Seiji felt it like a blade suspended over his neck.

“No,” he finally said, unable to keep the selfish syllable from spilling out. “I don’t want to. This marriage is beneficial to our companies. And to me.” Again, Seiji failed to keep his words in his mouth, but this time, they were pitiful ones. “But why haven’t you told Robert?” 

“I was planning on telling him yesterday, but Jesse was there. And in such a shit mood already, I didn’t want to make it worse. But, here.” Nicholas pulled his phone free from his pocket and, without looking, summoned voice command. “Call Robert Coste.”

“Nicholas, what are you—?”

“Shh,” Nicholas hushed him, then, to the phone, “Hey, Robert, how’s your evening going?…Glad to hear it…Yeah, all’s well, I just wanted to call and let you know that I don’t plan on signing away my Coste name.” Nicholas laughed. “Any more than I already have by taking the Katayama name, but you know what I mean…Yeah…Uh-huh. Awesome, thanks. Bye!”

Nicholas hung up the phone and dropped it in the cupholder.

“You waited two weeks just to tell him over the phone?” Seiji asked, incredulous.

“I told you, I was going to tell him in person yesterday. And I was just waiting for the right time. He’s been stressed with Jesse lately, I think. But if it was bugging you that much…Well, now it’s done and we don’t have to worry anymore about it.”

* * *

Seiji should have reinstated the duck pillow. He should never have returned it to the shelf in his closet in the first place. Nicholas felt far too close without the meager divide, his gravity more solid and his warmth more noticeable in its absence.

Tonight, Nicholas fell asleep quickly, but Seiji could not follow him so easily into dreams.

Nicholas was an enigma. He always had been, but the more Seiji thought about him, the less sense his husband made.

Nicholas was not a man to shy away from a challenge or back down from getting what he wanted. Seiji had seen as much in the way he conducted business and refused to accept no for an answer on subjects that really mattered to him. Nicholas himself had confessed that he’d have done anything to stay with the person he loved.

So why was he so content to stay married to Seiji and let Eugene go? Had he already made a grand pursuit of his friend and been met with rejection? But Seiji found it odd that he’d give up on those feelings if he still had them. If there was even a chance of returned feelings, Nicholas was the kind of man to take it.

Seiji had never really understood the appeal of rebounds, but marriage seemed an extreme one, even by normal standards.

At night, with Nicholas so close—always seeming to inch closer—doubts crept into Seiji’s mind, planting dangerous ideas.

_Marrying me,_ Seiji thought sternly, _is the collateral of a host of benefits. Fame and riches and power_ …

It made sense that Nicholas would be unwilling to give all that up, even if the price he paid for it was a loveless marriage and the loss of a love he didn’t think would ever be returned anyway. It made sense.

But…

Nicholas shifted closer, an arm swinging over Seiji and pulling him tightly against a solid chest. Breath tickled in Seiji’s ear as a chin hooked over his shoulder to match the leg that hooked between his.

Seiji should have pulled away. He’d been so good recently at not allowing this anymore—this mindless, unmeant affection that would have been bestowed on a pillow if it were still available. But tonight, Seiji’s resolve shook. Tonight, Seiji thought of Nicholas’s sure voice on the phone telling Robert that he planned to stay married to _him_. Tonight, Nicholas was so warm and his arms were so inviting and Seiji didn’t want to leave.

Tonight, doubts crept into his mind and planted dangerous ideas.

“Fool,” Seiji muttered fiercely. “You’re only convincing yourself of what you want to be true.”

Nicholas exhaled a sleepy sigh, voice following after in a scratchy, half-asleep timbre, “I know.”


	54. Chapter 54

Nick woke up alone. He often woke up alone. But the bed still felt vaguely warm and his arm prickled with sensation, as though it had fallen asleep during the night. Nick glanced at the closed bathroom door, behind which Seiji was getting ready for the day, a groggy memory from last night coming back to him as slowly as the blood flowed back into his heavy arm. Seiji in his arms, calling him a fool.

He was right. Nick was a fool. But Seiji hadn’t pushed him off in the night. Not this time.

“I’m meeting Robert at the office to go over some stuff about the marketing campaign for our car of the people,” Nick told Seiji over breakfast.

“Do you want me to drop you off?” Seiji offered, straightening the collar of his shirt under his charcoal sweater. “I’ve got to drop into the office too.”

“Yeah, actually, that’d be great.”

“I should warn you, though, I might be late there.”

“No sweat. I’ll call Eugene and see if he wants to work on his car today, he can pick me up so you can take as long as you need.”

Seiji nodded distractedly, finishing with his collar but leaving it untidy. Nick reached to straighten it out, realizing too late that this wasn’t allowed. And yet, Seiji didn’t push him off. His expression, however, turned troubled again. It had been troubled a lot lately. Nick had thought clearing up their marriage status with Robert might help but that didn’t seem to be the case. Seiji looked more lost than ever.

Unsure how to ease Seiji’s troubles, he dropped his hands from Seiji after fixing his shirt and finished breakfast quietly.

Nick called Eugene on the drive to work and he confirmed that he could snag Nick around noon to go to Joe’s yard and hammer out some hours on his car.

“Have a good day,” Seiji said as Nick climbed out at his office.

“Yeah, you too.”

“And say hi to Eugene for me.” Again, here was that troubled expression. “He did look rather exhausted last night.”

“I will,” Nick assured him. “What time do you think you’ll be done with work? You should call when you’re off, come hang out with us at the yard if we’re still there.”

“In this suit? I don’t think so. Wait!” Nick froze midway through closing the car up. “Nicholas, did you bring a change of clothes? You can’t work on a car wearing _that.”_

“Sure I can.”

“Nicholas—!”

“Bye!” Nick said, slamming the door and scampering away before Seiji could try and forbid him from getting grease on his nice shirt.

Nick found Robert in high spirits this morning. Jesse was as miserable as he’d been yesterday. Why he’d come, Nick wasn’t sure. He wasn’t being at all helpful, didn’t say a word on any marketing decisions being discussed, or offer his opinion when they were made. He might as well not be here.

 _Some marketing genius he is,_ Nick thought, resisting a roll of his eyes.

 _Is he hurting?_ Eugene asked in his mind. Nick didn’t resist sliding his eyes over to Jesse. He looked drained of life and interest, like the world had finally lost its sheen. Nick had seen that look on people before. It generally meant they were hurting.

“Jesse, can I talk to you for a moment?” Robert asked as their meeting came to a close. No thanks to Jesse, they’d managed to finish all they needed to before noon.

“I’m heading out,” Nick said with a nod goodbye, “see you.” He knew what Robert intended to talk to Jesse about, and he didn’t want to be around for it.

“Nickster!” Eugene’s cheery call echoed in the empty lobby and Nick grinned, picking up his pace to meet his friend in the middle of the floor. “I still can’t believe your sorry ass works here,” Eugene whistled, looking around the ostentatious building.

“And I still can’t believe your sorry ass won’t ditch that car of yours.”

“Hey, he’s a trooper,” Eugene defended, locking an arm around Nick’s neck and yanking him down for a noogie. Then, releasing Nick, he said, “Thanks for helping me patch him up.”

“Any time. But we should clear outta here before the demon child finishes his talk with Robert.”

“Demon child?”

“Jesse.”

“I see. What’s the meeting with Robert about?”

“He’ll be telling Jesse that I’m not signing over the company to him.”

“Yeah?” Eugene asked, face pulling into a grin. “So you and Seiji…?”

“Staying married.”

“Dude!” Eugene grabbed Nick again, this time in a hug. Laughing, Nick returned it. “That’s awesome! Congrats, for real.”

“What makes you think I want to stay married?” Nick asked. Eugene clapped him on the back with a bellowing laugh.

“I’m not a fucking moron, Nick, I know you do.” Eugene released Nick but didn’t stop smiling. Nick was honestly glad to see his friend’s smile in full and genuine force. He hadn’t realized how strained it had been before now.

“I guess,” Nick admitted. “But it’s not like he—uh-oh.”

Nick heard Jesse’s approach in the furious clicks of his shoes against tile. He and Eugene both turned to face Jesse. He looked as pissed as Nick had expected, eyes now burning with life and fury. When Jesse stormed up to them, Nick expected a punch in the face but was surprised when Jesse walked right past him to slip an arm through Eugene’s. His lips twisted into a malicious smirk at that surprise.

“Sorry, Nick,” Jesse said with a molasses sweet and sticky tone, “but I’m afraid I can’t let you have Eugene today, actually.”

“I’m—what?” Nick asked, looking from Jesse to Eugene. His friend looked just about as lost as Nick felt.

“Come with me, Eugene, let’s go.”

Eugene almost let Jesse sweep him away, but he regained his senses and stood firm, brows furrowing as he looked at Jesse.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because you’re mine.” Jesse’s sugary tone dropped into a growl, his grip around Eugene’s bicep tightening to what Nick thought must have been a painful vice.

Nick didn’t understand what was going on, but he understood the brief flash of hurt on Eugene’s face, the anger behind his eyes. He understood it, even if those emotions didn’t make sense on Eugene, who was always smiling and cracking a joke.

“I think,” Eugene said, his voice as unrecognizable as his expression, “I’d rather stick with Nick, thanks though. You can leave by yourself.”

It was the flash of hurt mirroring across Jesse’s face that finally kicked Nick’s brain into gear. That finally made all the pieces of a silently accumulating puzzle fall into place.

“Oh,” he said dumbly.

 _“Oh_ is right,” Jesse spat, ferocity redoubled as he focused on Nick. “You can’t have everything. You can’t have _him.”_ It was a plea, not a statement.

“Enough,” Eugene said flatly. “Jesse, that’s enough. I’m not yours. Just—leave.”

Eugene didn’t look at Jesse. Jesse didn’t look at Eugene either, not fully. But Nick saw Jesse take in Eugene’s expression from the corner of his eye, saw how it changed Jesse’s expression. Nick had never seen Eugene look so apathetically stony, so firm-jawed and stormy-eyed, and he’d known Eugene for years. He was sure that Jesse wasn’t accustomed to this attitude from Eugene either. So Jesse didn’t look it full-on. After gleaning Eugene’s mood, he shied away from it. Jesse snarled at Nick, then jerked himself off Eugene’s arm with such fervor you’d have thought Eugene had been the one holding him. He whipped around and stormed away quick enough to cut them with the air he’d just parted.

“You and Jesse…” Nick trailed off. How had he missed it?

“Yeah,” Eugene sighed, pushing a hand through his hair and leaving it messier than usual.

“How long?”

“Over a year.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. I—sorry, I should’ve told you. But it just…wasn’t anything. He wanted a fling. A distraction from the wedding, I figured.”

“The wedding? _My_ wedding?”

Eugene nodded. “That’s the one.”

“You got laid on my wedding night? _I_ didn’t even get laid on my wedding night.”

“Guess I’ve got more game than you, sorry, bud.” But the joke fell as flat as Eugene’s expression was dark. “I thought I was a distraction. But I was just revenge.”

“Revenge…what? On me?”

“I should have seen it—god, I thought he was just jealous and clingy but the whole time, he was just trying to get here, wasn’t he? To get me to choose him over you in some pitiful attempt to get back at you for making off with his company and fiancé. But he can just go rot alone with his miserable schemes, I don’t care.”

Nick was taken aback by the bitterness in Eugene’s voice. And his face, too, really was twisted into an alien mask crafted of anger and hurt and distaste—disgust, even. Nick couldn’t fault Eugene for saying what he had and thinking what he did. Nick wasn’t really sure he understood what had happened between his brother and his best friend but he could tell, plain as day, that Eugene was hurting because of it. Despite that, it was unsettling to see Eugene like this. And, Nick realized with a start, Eugene wasn’t the only one on his mind. Nick hadn’t known he cared about Jesse much at all until the animosity of Eugene’s words hit him with a phantom of the pain he was sure they’d cause Jesse if he was still here to hear them.

“Listen,” he started tentatively, “I don’t know what you know about business through marriage, but Seiji and Jesse grew up bartering parts of themselves to try and fit into a married life they wouldn’t hate and it—it fucked Seiji up. He won’t admit it, but it did. He’s got this whole fucked up view of things that seem really straight forward to me and—it’s like, his whole life, he’s treated himself as a thing instead of a person, and I guess that makes sense when your parents as good as sell you off as a commodity. I’m not close with Jesse… But I’m sure the stupid marriage contract fucked him up too, in its way.”

Nick remembered Jesse shouting at him in his office. _Did it ever occur to you that that’s just how it is?_ And before that, months ago, in his game room. _Sex isn’t a thing you do because you want it._ And even before that, at Robert in an expensive restaurant. _I’m ruined goods…who of your business associates would have me?_

“Yeah, it fucked him up and, like, it’s all a bargaining chip to them. Sex. Affection. Love. I don’t…I don’t think Jesse knows _how_ to give any of that away without placing a price on it. So just—be aware of that, I guess.”

“I’m not about to go and give him what he wants, Nick, he can sort his shit out himself. I don’t—,”

“You _do_ care, Gene. You always care, way too much and about everybody. You care about Jesse, I know you do. I’ve never seen you get this way over anything. And I’ve never seen _him_ get this way either. He’s been all hollow lately. You guys got in a fight, didn’t you?”

Eugene huffed a mirthless laugh.

“A fight. Yeah, we had one. Over—,” Eugene cut off abruptly, twisted anger slipping from his face. Something new registered there, something like shock. No, more than shock. Disbelief. “Nick, I think I’m gonna need a raincheck for today.”

“I’ll make Seiji pick me up.”

“You’re the best.”

“Eugene?” Nick called. Eugene was already on his way across the lobby.

“Huh?”

“Be careful with him if you can be.”

“I’ll do what I can,” Eugene promised and then he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jesse....does not make good choices or handle emotions well lmao. warned y'all there was hella eugesse set up XD  
>  ~~it's relevant to this story too, i promise~~


	55. Chapter 55

Nick watched the yellow convertible pull up in front of Coste Motor and climbed in with a grin at its driver.

“You could have taken an Uber home,” Seiji grouched, pulling away as soon as Nick buckled.

“Nah, I like this better.”

“You’ll regret saying that soon. I’m not done at the office.”

Nick shrugged, not complaining or wheedling to try and make Seiji drop him at the house before returning to work. Seiji had come right away when Nick called. It meant something extra that Seiji hadn’t been ready to leave, that he’d dropped everything to come get Nick anyway. So Nick didn’t complain now that he was being dragged back to everything Seiji had dropped for him.

Seiji didn’t speak during the drive, a look of consternation marring his features. Silently, Nick followed him up to his office, unsure what Seiji was so torn about. But it was clear he was thinking hard about something and Nick didn’t want to break his concentration in case it was some bit of business or another that had him looking like that, so Nick stayed quiet instead of distracting him more.

“Is Eugene alright?” Seiji asked as he strode to his desk.

“I think so,” Nick said, surprised Seiji was asking. He hadn’t said why Eugene had bailed over the phone, but now that Seiji was asking, Nick was unable to keep it to himself anymore. “As alright as anyone can be when they’ve gone and fallen for Jesse.”

“Jesse?” Seiji repeated. “Eugene is—? But that makes no—oh. Actually, I think that _does_ make sense. At least, I think a lot of things make a lot of sense if Jesse is in love with Eugene.”

“Yeah,” Nick agreed. “It makes a lot of sense all around. I can’t believe I didn’t notice it.”

“And are you alright?” Seiji asked, tone insisting the question was casual and body betraying that it was anything but. He’d paused before asking, visibly steeling himself for the question, which seemed to take him a lot of effort to get out, and busied himself with his papers right after as if in an attempt to distract himself from the fact that he’d actually gotten it out.

“I’m great,” Nick said, though it sounded almost like a question. He wasn’t sure what Seiji was actually asking but he was sure there was more to it than just _are you alright._

“I just meant—with Eugene and Jesse—if they’re, uh,” Seiji stumbled, cleared his throat. Nick was amazed to hear him sounding so ineloquent. “If they’re together now, is that okay with you?”

“Oh,” Nick said with a burst of laughter. “Yeah, I mean, I guess it’s kinda weird that they’re—whatever they are. I did _not_ see it coming. But if Eugene thinks Jesse’s the one for him, then…I hope they work it out.”

“You’re an exceedingly good friend,” Seiji said solemnly to the papers he was still fussing about with.

“If you say so.” Nick plopped into one of the chairs at Seiji’s desk and reached to still the papers. Seiji looked up sharply. “If you brought me back to the office just so you could shuffle this stack of papers for ten minutes, I think I’m going to have to start complaining.”

“If you have a problem with the way I conduct my business, you are free to leave. You have your own office here, you know.”

“I know. But I’d rather be with you.”

Seiji snatched the papers away from Nick so fast, he expected to find paper cuts on his fingers when he looked down. But he got distracted before he got the chance to examine them.

“Are you…?” he started. But he didn’t need to finish asking the question because the answer was plain to see, even as Seiji swiveled hurriedly in his chair to face the windows behind his desk.

Yes, Seiji was blushing.

Nick frowned at the high back of the chair that hid his husband from view. It didn’t make sense, the way Seiji acted. Ever since Harvard told them about the loophole, he’d been distant and cold. Except for when he wasn’t. Like last night when he let Nick hold him again. Or right now when he blushed at Nick’s simple words. It was like he was trying to be distant and cold but he kept forgetting how.

_It’s like, his whole life, he’s treated himself as a thing instead of a person._ Nick had said as much to Eugene not even an hour ago, explaining to him why Jesse might have behaved the way he had. But it was true that both men had grown up seeing themselves as payment in a business deal. Nick knew that. Had seen firsthand again and again how hard it was for Seiji to leave that view of himself behind.

“Seiji,” Nick said slowly, “why do you want to stay married to me?”

“I already told you, it’s just good business. You were wise to keep your position and all that comes with it. I believe it is best for everyone this way, don’t you? Is that not why you wanted to stay married?”

“I—,”

Seiji’s phone rang on his desk and he spun back around to reach for it. Hand hovering over the receiver, Seiji glanced at Nick. He looked a little panicked. Nick was certain his panic wasn’t over the phone call, but rather at the conversation it had interrupted.

“Go wait in your office, I can’t have you in here on a call,” Seiji commanded, picking up the phone before Nick could protest. “Hello, Seiji speaking. Ah, Aiden. Yes, now is a good time. I’m glad you called, I wanted to ask how your father took the news.”

Seiji pointed at his door and Nick didn’t dare disobey. So he trundled out of Seiji’s office and into his own, mind still buzzing with the possibility that the progress he’d felt them make over the last year hadn’t been false. What if this was another example of something that seemed so simple and straight forward to Nick that Seiji just didn’t _get_ because he saw himself as part of a deal before he’d even consider himself as a human being?

Why did Nick want to stay married to Seiji? Because he wanted to _be_ married to Seiji. But had he made that clear? Had he ever said outright that keeping the name had never been about the company, but about the people? The _person?_ The one whose name he was _actually_ keeping in all this?

No, Nick knew he hadn’t. He’d been a coward and only committed halfway, waiting to gauge Seiji’s reaction. And when Seiji’s reaction had been cold and efficient, he’d retreated. He’d assumed.

Was it too much to hope that he’d assumed incorrectly?


	56. Chapter 56

Nicholas was unnervingly quiet on the drive home. When Seiji had collected him from his office, he’d seemed contemplative. Nicholas was not a very contemplative person. He was so impulsive, there was no time for him to contemplate until he’d already done whatever it was he might have contemplated. Seiji thought it meant something that Nicholas was so quiet and so lost in thought.

It was unsettling.

“Let’s make something,” Nicholas said once they were inside the door, taking off shoes and hanging up keys. Was this what he’d been so intent about pondering? What to have for _dinner?_

“We still have—,”

“I know. But we have mozzarella from earlier this week and a pack of pepperonis from the last time we made pizza…”

“Won’t they be bad by now?”

“Nah, those things have a shelf life of forever, _especially_ when that shelf is in the fridge. So what do you say?”

Nicholas was already in the kitchen, his apron looped over his neck but not tied. He held out the matching blue one to Seiji. Seiji took it with a sigh, resigning himself to an unnecessary night of cooking simply because his husband had suggested it. But when he ducked his head into the apron and took up the strings in the back to tie it, his hands were batted away as Nicholas took the strings instead. Seiji preferred to tie his apron in the front, but he let Nicholas have them because it seemed more effort than it was worth to fight Nicholas off. That was what he told himself, anyway. It was already too much to have Nicholas so close when they were both fully awake, but then Nicholas’s arms slipped under his, bringing them closer together, and it stilled the air in Seiji’s lungs.

He’d remembered that Seiji always tied it in the front.

“Nicholas,” Seiji protested, trying to sound stern instead of breathless, “there’s no reason for you to do that if—,”

“Hush.”

“But if you’re just going to reach around, it’s far easier for me to—,”

“I want to,” Nicholas said firmly, and he was so close, his body all but fit against Seiji’s the way it had been last night, his head notching over Seiji’s shoulder and his words brushing directly into Seiji’s ear.

Seiji suppressed a shiver but stopped trying to object to this, to Nicholas’s arms around him, carefully trying a sloppy bow by touch alone. He missed the warmth when Nicholas withdrew but recognized, too, that Nicholas had lingered after finishing it.

Seiji resisted the urge to retie the bow immediately.

“I know that face,” Nicholas said, his own face pulling into a smile that Seiji recognized as one that meant Nicholas was mocking—no, _teasing_ —him. There was never any malice in it. But there might have been something else. Fondness, perhaps, or affection. Seiji didn’t allow himself to dwell on the _something else_ for very long. “You can redo the bow if you want to.”

Looking down at the rumpled bow, Seiji just shook his head. Whether at Nicholas’s permission or at his own foolish sentimentality, he couldn’t be sure. But he left the bow alone and went to pull out the things they’d need for the dough. They’d only made pizza once before, but Seiji remembered the night in perfect detail, right down to the groceries he’d helped Nicholas pull out of plastic bags, which he’d run out to buy with little warning. Looking back on that night, Seiji thought he knew why he remembered it so well. The heat of Nicholas’s body against him and the laughter mingling with the music as they danced. The hand low on his back, the laugh in brown eyes as they challenged him to prove he could dance.

The very beginnings of something more than obligation, kindling somewhere between Nicholas’s awful puns and magnetic body, right under Seiji’s nose and entirely under his radar for so long.

“Should we try spinning the pizza tonight?” Nicholas asked, frowning down at the misshapen rectangle of dough under his wooden rolling pin.

“And end up tossing it on the floor?” Seiji asked. “No.”

“Theoretically,” Nicholas said, either ignoring Seiji’s advice or picking the dough up in direct defiance of it, “I should just be able to—whoops!”

The dough, predictably, went flying. Seiji caught it before it flew right into his face and slammed it down on the pan, folding in the elongated edges to fit it in place.

“I told you,” Seiji said irritably. “You always make such a mess.”

“Life is messy,” Nicholas shrugged. “And full of surprises.”

“Like flying pizzas.”

“Something like that,” Nicholas smiled absently.

He didn’t ask Seiji what topping he wanted, knowing to only cover half the pizza in pepperonis and keeping the cheese to a minimum on Seiji’s half. When had he picked up on that last part? Seiji shuddered at the idea that they ate pizza frequently enough for his cheese preferences to be evident to Nicholas.

“You didn’t preheat the oven,” Seiji observed as he turned to open it for the pizza, finding it dark and cold.

“Details are more your area of expertise.”

“It’s your dinner, you should have said if you wanted me to preheat the oven.”

“You’re usually so good at that stuff, I forgot to check.”

Seiji dropped it, realizing _why_ such details had slipped his mind. He’d been distracted by Nicholas’s arms looping around his middle, tying on his apron. It wasn’t anything he wanted to direct Nicholas’s attention to, so he accepted the excuse wordlessly and preheated the oven now. But it would delay dinner even further.

Nicholas fiddled with the radio to pass the time. If that wasn’t reminiscent enough of a night nearing a year ago, a familiar trill of notes caught Seiji’s ear. Nicholas’s fingers paused on the dial and, slowly, he turned around, abandoning the softly singing radio.

“It’s our song.”

“I wasn’t aware we had a song,” Seiji said, suddenly finding it difficult to meet Nicholas’s intent gaze.

“We do.” A soft step of socked feet against tile. An even softer displacement of air as a hand extended to Seiji. “Dance with me?”

“I—don’t be ridiculous—,”

But Nicholas’s request had not left room for refusal. He took Seiji’s hand gently and pulled him away from the counter, a hand finding his hip and slipping to hold against the dip of his back.

“Fool,” Seiji muttered again, but he stepped into Nicholas and laid a palm over his shoulder, curled fingers around a skilled hand, and rested cheek against a simple, charcoal gray button-down that smelled of Nicholas—deodorant and sun and washing detergent, no spices or musks of cologne. Seiji liked it. He liked it so much. Liked that Nicholas always smelled like himself and left that scent behind on pillows and blankets and jackets for Seiji to lose himself in.

Nicholas was always so simply and straightforwardly himself.

Seiji was so simply and horribly in love with him.

Partway through the song, Nicholas’s soft, rumbly humming ceased and his arm hugged tighter around Seiji, pulling him closer—too close to dance. Too close to do practically anything at all.

“Marry me,” Nicholas whispered into Seiji’s ear.

Seiji pulled himself off of Nicholas’s chest with a start, confused as he sought out his husband’s eyes.

“I already did,” Seiji told him. “We’re already married.”

“Our companies are already married,” Nicholas corrected, as though that wasn’t what Seiji had just said. As though it was important. “Imagine if we weren’t heirs and business tycoons, pretend you’d never been entered into a business through marriage contract. Say that you were just a gorgeous and brilliant man, and I was just a nobody. If I asked you to marry me, Seiji, would you say yes?”

“What are you…?” Seiji tried to step back but he couldn’t. Nicholas held his hand—gentle but firm—and kept an insistent hand at his back.

“I’m saying that, in some other universe, I’d want to ask you to marry me properly and I’d want you to say yes for nobody but yourself and for no reason besides wanting to.”

“And in this universe?”

“In this universe,” Nicholas smiled lopsidedly, shrugged a shoulder, “we’re already married. But I want to ask you again. As a person, not as an agreeable business connection. Will you marry me?”

“But what about—?”

“Seiji.”

“I thought—,”

“I’m in love with you.”

Seiji didn’t know what to say to that. Didn’t know how to believe it. He just stood—the rhythmic sways had long since stopped—and listened as the song started toward its end. Their song.

Seiji hadn’t gotten a dance at his wedding. He hadn’t really wanted one. But he got a song. And dances in his kitchen. And a late confession. And a proposal that was lacking in both sense and practical purpose.

“Yes,” Seiji said with the last, fading note of their song. “I’d marry you in another life. And I’d marry you again in this one.”

It was true. Of course it was true. But _this_ didn’t feel like real life. It felt like a dream. Nothing but the press of Nicholas’s lips against his could have convinced him that he wasn’t still asleep, wrapped in arms he’d never thought had actually meant to hold him. Seiji was beginning to think, just maybe, they _had_ meant to hold him.

They held him now, Nicholas’s hand slipping from Seiji’s to cup his cheek and tilt his head slightly. Seiji had only kissed one man in his entire life, only experienced one kiss before now. That chaste and dreaded display at their wedding, which Seiji had, by now, replayed dozens of times in his head in his weaker moments.

At first, this kiss had been much the same as that one had been, right down to the nerves he felt, though it was true the nerves were of a different variety than he had previously experienced. But as Nicholas’s hand whispered into hair and his tongue ghosted against lips, Seiji quickly realized that he hadn’t ever been kissed. Not really, not properly. The performance at their wedding was an entirely different breed from _this_. Seiji’s lips tingled with sensation as Nicholas kissed them open and teased out sounds from Seiji’s throat he hadn’t even known he could make before devouring them greedily.

With every passing moment, Nicholas’s kisses seemed to intensify—or maybe Seiji was just going light-headed from forgetting to breathe. His hand knotted into the fabric of Nicholas’s shirt—it would be stretched and wrinkled but Seiji _needed_ it, needed the anchor to hold to as the sea of sensations started to crash into him, threatening to tear him asunder.

“Sorry,” Nicholas said, voice heady and intoxicating as his words dropped from his lips and onto Seiji’s. “I’ve wanted to do that for ages.”

“You should have done it earlier,” Seiji returned, eyes dipping closed as he tipped his mouth to brush lightly over Nicholas’s, just to see if it was allowed, if it would make something in his stomach spark. It was and it did.

“I didn’t want you to think…” Nicholas’s exhale was one of frustrated impatience. He couldn’t come up with the words he wanted to say fast enough.

Brushing Seiji’s hair back into place—when had it fallen out of place?—Nicholas took a step back, his hand falling away from Seiji’s face. Seiji missed the warmth and the hold at once, the way he always did when he pulled out of it in the early morning.

“Nothing I want from you has anything to do with Katayama Energy. I don’t want anything to do with that stupid contract and I don’t want to exchange favors and bargains. I just want you. All of you and only you. And I want to give you all of me. Do you understand that?”

Nicholas looked so concerned—had looked so concerned for the entire evening—and Seiji wanted to reach out and smooth away the worry. With a thrill, he realized he could. If he could only work up the nerve.

Tentatively, Seiji lifted an arm and held a hand to Nicholas’s face. He didn’t rub away the worry lines with his thumb the way Nicholas had once tried for him, but they disappeared nonetheless at his touch.

“Of all the things I’ve thought,” Seiji assured him, “the notion that you wanted to bargain physicality and affection wasn’t one. I understand.”

“Do you?” Nicholas asked, closing a hand on top of Seiji’s. “Do you understand that I never wanted to stay married to you for the sake of our companies? Seiji, the only reason I even considered signing away Coste Motor and everything that goes with it was because I thought it might be what you wanted. I—really love you. And I want to be your husband in more than name.”

“Nicholas Katayama,” Seiji said, allowing himself to love each syllable of the name as he said it, “you already are.”

Seiji guided Nicholas’s face close to his again and found Nicholas receptive to the kiss, ready to believe that Seiji understood. And Seiji did.

Nicholas wanted to be married to him.

After everything, all the negotiating and bargaining, and all the years of preparation and planning, Seiji had somehow fallen in love with his husband. Just not the husband he’d planned for, not the fiancé he’d bargained with all his life. Bargained with so frequently—bargained for and away so much with—that they’d both stopped seeing the other as a person and had instead seen only an idea. Jesse had seen Seiji as a possession. Seiji had seen Jesse as the opposing queen on a chessboard.

Nicholas had not always liked Seiji. In fact, he’d quite _dis_ liked him at the start, but he’d never seen Seiji as anything other than a person—a flawed person. He’d had more reason than any to view Seiji as a glorified currency, the way he’d been forced into a wedding with Seiji to secure his place at Coste Motor with no understanding of the traditions of business through marriage. But Nicholas had always refused to let Seiji bargain himself away. Seiji had thought Nicholas a fool for his naivety, had been sure Nicholas would learn to regret his declination to seize advantages. Seiji liked to be right but he liked this better.

Seiji slid his hand to the back of Nicholas’s head and pressed himself into Nicholas’s warmth harder, almost desperately. The thought of being married to anyone else was unthinkable and terrifying; the idea of it was enough to make Seiji want to hold on tight to this man and never let him go. Nicholas grunted a little at the increased force but his arms tightened too, as if he knew that Seiji needed to be held—as if _he_ needed to be as close to Seiji as Seiji needed to be to him. Seiji had a fleeting thought about all the ways he wanted to be closer to Nicholas and feel Nicholas against him and—Seiji’s skin flushed all over, but it wasn’t only embarrassment that seared through his veins and across his skin.

The oven beeped, signaling that it was time to stop this and do more practical things. But Seiji didn’t want to stop. And neither did Nicholas, whose arms only hardened around Seiji’s as though they expected him to break out of them for something so trivial and unimportant. Dinner could wait. Seiji had waited long enough for this.

All those months denying himself thoughts of this and still the thoughts had slipped through, but not a single one of those idle daydreams could compare to the weight of Nicholas’s hand gripping his hip or the heat of his mouth as it chased Seiji’s pulse in his neck or the scrape of fingernails against his scalp as Nicholas gathered a handful of hair or the warmth nestled deep in his own heart, unfurling and overtaking him completely.

Nothing Seiji had ever expected and nothing he had ever even dared hope for could compare to this. Seiji had been promised an entire life he’d never wanted. And now, he was promising himself to the man he did. Nicholas was wonderfully, undeniably solid and real beneath Seiji’s fingers and against his body—wonderfully, undeniably _his._ Every kiss and shared beat of their hearts was another promised thing between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ayyy i didn't even make y'all wait for the final chapter for a confession! you're welcome <3


	57. Chapter 57

Nick and Seiji _did_ cook the pizza. Ate it, too. But it was a longer process than usual. Time moved differently tonight, marked off by pressed kisses instead of ticked off by seconds.

“We have work tomorrow,” Seiji whispered into Nick’s neck.

“We could skip,” Nick suggested hopefully. But he knew it was a fruitless pursuit.

Seiji shook his head and pulled gently from Nick’s arms to continue with the dishes Nick had interrupted. Nick wasn’t done distracting Seiji, though. He slipped his arms around Seiji’s waist and rested his chin on his shoulder, turning slightly to kiss Seiji’s neck. Nick loved the way it made Seiji’s steady movements pause—stutter—before Seiji regathered himself and proceeded, pretending stubbornly that he wasn’t concerned with Nick’s hugs and kisses. Nick took happily to the task of proving otherwise.

“You could help,” Seiji snapped impatiently when Nick’s kisses to his neck became too distracting again.

“You could leave the dishes for tomorrow for once in your life,” Nick countered. “I want—,”

“I know what you want,” Seiji interrupted. “And you’ll have to wait.”

Judging by the flush creeping up the neck Nick continued to kiss, Seiji really did know exactly what he wanted. Nick wanted to tug Seiji away from the kitchen and to their bedroom, wanted to pull him onto the bed and kiss him until they fell asleep. And then he wanted to wake up with his husband still in his arms and kiss him good morning.

“Fine,” Nick sighed, relinquishing Seiji to help with clean-up. “Have it your way. But after this, _I_ get to choose the activity.”

Seiji made a hum in his throat that Nick took as agreement. Nick tried his best to hurry the chores along but he kept getting pulled to Seiji as if by some gravitational force. And each time he found himself too near, Nick couldn’t help but stop Seiji briefly in his tracks to kiss him before letting them both get back to work.

And even when he wasn’t touching Seiji, Nick’s eyes would drift over to him and linger there, time standing still around him as it hit him again that Seiji understood. Understood that Nick loved him and wanted to be married to him in the way two people who love each other got married, not in the way that two sons of modern-day empires got married.

“Nicholas,” Seiji ventured curiously during one of these instances, bringing Nick to awareness. “Are you going to put that plate away?”

Looking around, Nick realized that everything was tidied up and put away. Everything except the plate in his hands.

“Yeah,” Nick said. “Yeah, I am.”

“Then…I’m going to go take a shower. Is that alright?”

“Yeah, I took one this morning so I don’t need any hot water.” Not that this place couldn’t easily produce enough for two hot showers one after the other.

Seiji nodded and turned to leave for their room. But then he came to a jerky halt and turned around, coming back to Nick to quickly press another kiss to his lips.

“Don’t take another ten minutes to put that away,” Seiji said before leaving again.

“Very romantic parting words,” Nick muttered to himself with a smile and a shake of his head. He didn’t think it was possible for Seiji to endear himself to Nick any more than he already had, but Seiji kept proving him wrong. Probably, Seiji would be glad to hear it. He liked to prove Nick wrong.

Nick took his time heading to the bedroom even after putting the plate away. He could hear the shower running and could still smell the spices from dinner lingering in the air as the lowering sun filtered in lazily from the massive windows. He felt warm. And right. And at home.

Nicholas Cox had never thought he could find a place and a person that felt like home to him, and Nicholas Katayama would never take it for granted that he _had_ found a home. That he’d found Seiji.

He meandered to his bedroom, past walls adorned with pictures of his friends—his family. He considered all the space left on the walls, waiting to be hung with new pictures. The wedding photos were pretty, but Nick wanted something more real. He wondered if he could convince Seiji to frame that picture of them he kept tucked in his diary. There was a spot on his bookshelf by the piano that would fit a frame nicely. The moment it held may not have been as sweet as the camera colored it, but it had certainly been real. It had been the start. Nick liked it. He liked it even more knowing Seiji had carried it with him for so long.

In his bedroom, Nick noticed the picture above his and Seiji’s bed. How long had it been since he’d caught Seiji escaping into it? Nick had found a life he wanted in this house. It occurred to him that Seiji might have too. It was a good thought.

Nick changed into pajama pants because he knew how much it irritated Seiji that he slept in his boxers, but before he could pull out a shirt to go with them, the bathroom door fell open. Nick breathed in the warm air scented with the cool mint of Seiji’s shampoo. He was distracted at once. Nick only meant to glance at Seiji, but what he saw made him forget what he was doing as he straightened up to stare at Seiji.

Nick wasn’t the only one who hadn’t bothered to get fully dressed.

“Oh,” Seiji said, looking Nick over with mild surprise, “you’re wearing pants.”

“And you’re not,” Nick said, expecting the hallucination of Seiji in a loose t-shirt and boxer briefs to shatter any moment now. But none of that tantalizing skin seemed likely to disappear or get covered up.

Nick abandoned his drawer at once to catch Seiji around the waist and kiss him again. He tasted like mint now, from his toothpaste and his favorite chapstick. Nick wanted to rub his lips raw of it. But—

“I should brush my teeth,” Nick said. “Get ready for bed and all that.”

Seiji frowned as Nick pulled away.

This task, Nick _did_ hurry through properly, returning to the bedroom in record time to find his pajama drawer already shut and his side of the bed already occupied.

Slowly, Nick approached the man situated there, wondering how to proceed. Just two minutes ago, the path had seemed so simple, so clear. But now…

“There’s nothing in the contract about…” Seiji gestured vaguely at the bed and at himself, sat atop it with gorgeous legs tucked to one side, accentuating the curve of a hip. Seiji was so rarely one for vagueness and trailed-off sentences, but his blush spoke volumes for his current state of mind.

“Seiji,” Nick said, unable to keep his brow from wrinkling up just a bit at the mention of that stupid contract. _This._ This was what he’d worried about. “I told you, I don’t want anything from that—,”

“No,” Seiji said, fumbling a little as he cut Nick off. “You’re missing my point. There’s—we left that part out. Everything between us was left to the natural rules of marriage and relationships. Unlike—previous iterations of my marriage contract, nothing is outlined or forbidden, no quotas are left to be filled and forbiddances made for overfilling them. Kissing and…” Seiji cleared his throat, “and affection and physical intimacy and—and sex. In normal marriages, without contracts dictating it all, isn’t it desire that dictates it?”

“Yeah,” Nick agreed carefully. “Desire. And love.”

“I love you,” Seiji blurted, then took a deep, settling breath and closed his eyes. Opened them again. Set those eyes made of voids on Nick. “I love you, Nicholas. And I—I want you to _come here,_ please.”

Nick hadn’t purposefully been hovering, but he could see now why his stillness would make Seiji nervous. It was just that—

_I love you._

Those words, this room, this man. They all meant home and warmth and security and belonging. And they were all his. And he was struck again by the enormity of that. The impossibility of it. But now, looking at Seiji’s ruddy face and stern eyes, Nick could no more stand still now than he could have moved the moment before.

Nick climbed onto the bed to join Seiji, and it felt so natural that Nick wondered how he could have worried about this. Could have worried that Seiji wouldn’t lean into him at once and let his weight collapse into him as arms fit around his shoulders. Could have worried that Seiji would cling to that stupid contract instead of use it, in his own way, to make clear what he wanted and that he understood that want existed _outside_ of obligations and legalities.

Apparently, Seiji had not made it clear enough in his own eyes because he ducked his head to the side before Nick could kiss him.

“It’s my understanding,” he said headily, “that this now counts as a normal marriage.”

“Mhmm,” Nick mumbled in agreement, enjoying the feel of Seiji in his arms and the soft fabric under his fingers as they pushed up and down Seiji’s back.

“And you love me.”

“I do.”

“And I love you. And I—desire you too.”

Nick turned his head to kiss Seiji’s ear, then his jaw, then his long, elegant neck. Here, he got to work, laying down a foundation of kisses all down Seiji’s throat and then back up again before offering a soft nip that made Seiji shiver against him in some combination of surprise and desire and anticipation.

“So what you’re saying is you want to go back to Paris?” Nick asked, lips pulling into a smirk even as they were pressed into neck. Another kiss before he went on. “For a second honeymoon? A _proper_ honeymoon?”

To Nick’s surprise, Seiji’s fingers curled tightly into his hair and the movement of his neck under Nick’s mouth seemed to indicate a slight nod.

_“Yes,”_ Seiji gasped softly as Nick took sensitive skin between teeth and sucked a hickey over Seiji’s fluttering pulse.

Nick slid a hand up Seiji’s shirt and Seiji arched his back in response. At first, it only drove him heavier into Nick, but then his balance tipped, toppling them both down to the mattress. Seiji landed haphazardly on top of Nick, a tiny keening sound falling from his perfect lips when Nick shifted just slightly and his leg pressed between Seiji’s thighs.

“Book us a flight for tomorrow,” Nick suggested, hot desire coursing through his veins as he looked into Seiji’s face and saw a desperate want there, shameless and open in a way Seiji’s face never was.

“We’ve got work—,”

Nick took advantage of having Seiji perched over him like this, shirt hanging off his body and displaying what lay beneath. It was all too easy to slip the loose neckline down over one fair shoulder without Seiji noticing as he tried to lecture Nick about work. Tugging the shirt further down Seiji’s arm and out of the way, Nick interrupted Seiji’s useless lecture, the brush of his lips against nipple causing a shaky exhale that took all of Seiji’s words with it.

“Seiji,” Nick murmured into his husband’s heart, “there’s so much I want to do and I’ve been waiting months already. Tomorrow, let’s fly to Paris and have a real honeymoon. Please?”

Nick wasn’t sure if he expected Seiji to fight or yield, but when Nick finished speaking and kissed Seiji’s chest again, then sweetly rolled one perfect nipple between teeth, Seiji fell again, hands that had previously been braced on either side of Nick slipping and landing him on his forearms with another shaky breath.

“Tomorrow, we’ll fly to Paris,” Seiji agreed, each word seeming to cost him a great deal in concentration and will power. “And tonight?”

Nick’s thumb rubbed circles against Seiji’s lower back as he thought about it.

“And tonight,” Nick said, taking his time as he kissed up Seiji’s chest. He paused to bite teasingly at Seiji’s gorgeous collarbones before tangling a hand in Seiji’s hair to pull him down for better access to his neck, his jaw, his face. Gently, Nick pressed a kiss against the dark beauty mark that he’d always—since the very first time he’d seen _Seiji Katayama_ on the covers of magazines—thought was properly worthy of that title. _Beauty mark._ A mark of Seiji’s beauty. Then, finally, he found Seiji’s dark eyes with his. “Tonight, we do whatever you want.”

Seiji lowered himself completely onto Nick, his weight such a carefully given gift. His body was so warm and welcome that Nick instinctively wrapped Seiji up in his arms and just held him there. Seiji’s arms ducked under him, fingers pressing into shoulders and cheek nestling against him.

“I want—,” Seiji shook his head into the crook of Nick’s shoulder.

“What?” Nick prompted softly. “What do you want?”

“Never mind, it’s stupid.”

“Nothing you say is ever stupid. What is it?”

“Eugene.”

_“Eugene?”_ Nick repeated incredulously. That wasn’t at all what he’d been expecting—or hoping—to hear.

Seiji clung tighter to Nick, as if he was the one having the name of another guy flung at him in the middle of what Nick thought definitely counted as an _intimate moment._

“You’re very fond of him.”

“I—yeah? He’s my best friend.”

“Was it hard?”

“Was what hard?” Nick asked, definitely missing some vital part of this conversation.

“Getting over him.”

Nick spluttered, rolling Seiji off him and sitting up partially to look incredulously down on him, spread out flat on his back now. Nick’s spluttering turned to laughter until he noticed the way Seiji turned his head away from Nick to hide his face in his own shoulder. His ear was pink and his eyes were tight, his mouth an unhappy line. This, too, had cost Seiji a lot to say. But Nick had a hard time understanding why.

“Seiji,” Nick said tentatively, “there was nothing to get over.”

Seiji looked over sharply.

“But Jesse—!”

“Gave you bad information,” Nick said, the last puzzle piece falling into place. He reached out to brush back Seiji’s hair, his wrist caught by a sturdy grip before he could withdraw it. “Whatever Jesse saw between me and Eugene, it was only what he wanted to see—and then what he feared seeing. _Not_ the truth.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“He said—at my birthday, you hugged Eugene and Jesse said—and then I couldn’t stop seeing it. I didn’t want it to be true but I was scared it was. I thought for sure you were…”

“Nope. Never.” Nick shook his head, wondering now at Seiji’s surprise bender at his birthday and if _this_ might have anything to do with it. But that was a thought for later. Now wasn’t the time for teasing. “I’ve been in love exactly once, Seiji.”

Seiji’s eyes widened and Nick saw the entire universe in them. Then a smile spread across his face in the way a late winter gave way to spring. It was the most beautiful thing Nick had ever seen—and he’d seen a lot of beautiful things already tonight. Seiji shifted to slot himself against Nick and Nick would have missed being able to look at that rare and lovely smile if he didn’t think he could draw it out of Seiji again. So he let Seiji fold into him and let himself fall all the way down to the bed. Seiji still had one of Nick’s hands captive, but he maneuvered the other arm under Seiji, encouraging him to tuck in even closer with a hand pressed into his back.

It felt so comfortable, so right, to be fit together with Seiji like this, tangled together on their bed. Nick didn’t plan on letting Seiji go for the rest of the night. The rest of his life if he was allowed it.

“You said,” Seiji breathed, hot air tickling against Nick’s bare chest, “that you’d always stay with someone. If you loved them.”

“I’d do anything,” Nick confirmed as Seiji looked up at him. “I’ll always do whatever it takes to stay by your side, Seiji. If you want me to.”

Seiji slipped a hand against Nick’s cheek and kissed him softly with that sweet smile still lingering on his lips.

“I do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy shit we're done.
> 
> I don't even know how to formulate an end note that can capture the love and gratitude I have for all of you for sticking with me on this fic and for all the amazing kindness you've all shown me in the comments along the way. This fic, or at least the idea of it, has been in my head for about two years now, but I knew it would be a long one. After so long collecting scenes and lore in my head and notes app, it's been pretty cool to actually bring this story into the world and share it. And _holy shit_ did y'all receive it with open arms! I'm honestly blown away that you guys really read a non-fencing, businessman AU that uses arranged marriages in ways that don't exist in real life. It just means a lot to me that you'd give this a try and that you made it all the way here to the end. 
> 
> I had a hell of a time posting this one, really and truly, thank you for reading 💜


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